Search

Abstract We present a strategy based on the step-scaling technique to study non-perturbatively thermal QCD up to very high temperatures. As a first concrete application, we compute the flavour non-singlet meson screening masses at 12 temperatures covering the range from T ∼ 1 GeV up to ∼ 160 GeV in the theory with three massless quarks. The calculation is carried out by Monte Carlo simulations on the lattice by considering large spatial extensions in order to have negligible finite volume effects. For each temperature we have simulated 3 or 4 values of the lattice spacing, so as to perform the continuum limit extrapolation with confidence at a few permille accuracy. Chiral symmetry restoration manifests itself in our results through the degeneracy of the vector and the axial vector channels and of the scalar and the pseudoscalar ones. In the entire range of temperatures explored, the meson screening masses deviate from the free theory result, 2πT, by at most a few percent. These deviations, however, cannot be explained by the known leading term in the QCD coupling constant g up to the highest temperature, where other contributions are still very relevant. In particular the vector-pseudoscalar mass splitting turns out to be of O(g4) in the entire range explored, and it remains clearly visible up to the highest temperature, where the two screening masses are still significantly different within our numerical precision. The pattern of different contributions that we have found explains why it has been difficult in the past to match non-perturbative lattice results at T ∼ 1 GeV with the analytic behaviour at asymptotically high temperatures.

Abstract The non-Gaussian fluctuations of baryon density are sensitive to the presence of the conjectured QCD critical point. Their observational consequences are crucial for the ongoing experimental search for this critical point through the beam energy scan program at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). In the expanding fireball created in a heavy-ion collision, critical fluctuations would inescapably fall out of equilibrium and require a systematic description within a dynamical framework. In this paper, we employ newly developed effective field theory (EFT) for fluctuating hydrodynamics to study the real-time critical non-Gaussian fluctuations of a conserved charge density. In particular, we derive the evolution equations for multi-point correlators of density fluctuations and obtain the closed-form solutions with arbitrary initial conditions that can readily be implemented in realistic simulations for heavy-ion collisions. We find that non-linear interactions among noise fields, which are missing in traditional stochastic hydrodynamics, could potentially contribute to the quartic (fourth-order) fluctuations in the scaling regime even at tree level in off-equilibrium situations.

Abstract : Observations of gravitational waves from neutron star mergers open up novel directions for exploring fundamental physics: they offer the first access to the structure of objects with a non-negligible contribution from vacuum energy to their total mass. The presence of such vacuum energy in the inner cores of neutron stars occurs in new QCD phases at large densities, with the vacuum energy appearing in the equation of state for a new phase. This in turn leads to a change in the internal structure of neutron stars and influences their tidal deformabilities which are measurable in the chirp signals of merging neutron stars. By considering three commonly used neutron star models we show that for large chirp masses the effect of vacuum energy on the tidal deformabilities can be sizable. Measurements of this sort have the potential to provide a first test of the gravitational properties of vacuum energy independent from the acceleration of the Universe, and to determine the size of QCD contributions to the vacuum energy.

Abstract Violation of scale symmetry, scale anomaly, being a radical concept in quantum field theory, is of importance to comprehend the vacuum structure of QCD, and should potentially contribute to the chiral phase transition in thermal QCD, as well as the chiral and U(1) axial symmetry. Though it should be essential, direct evidence of scale anomalies has never been observed in the chiral phase transition. We propose a methodology to detect a scale anomaly in the chiral phase transition, which is an electromagnetically induced scale anomaly: apply a weak magnetic field background onto two-flavor massless QCD with an extremely heavy strange quark, first observe the chiral crossover; second, adjusting the strange quark mass to be smaller and smaller, observe the second-order chiral phase transition, and then the first-order one in the massless-three flavor limit. Thus, the second-order chiral phase transition, observed as the evidence of the quantum scale anomaly, is a new critical endpoint. It turns out that this electromagnetic scale anomaly gets most operative in the weak magnetic field regime, rather than a strong field region. We also briefly address accessibility of lattice QCD, a prospected application to dense matter system, and implications to astrophysical observations, such as gravitational wave productions provided from thermomagnetic QCD-like theories.

Abstract The nature of the QCD chiral phase transition in the limit of vanishing quark masses has remained elusive for a long time, since it cannot be simulated directly on the lattice and is strongly cutoff-dependent. We report on a comprehensive ongoing study using unimproved staggered fermions with N f ∈ [2, 8] mass-degenerate flavours on N τ ∈ {4, 6, 8} lattices, in which we locate the chiral critical surface separating regions with first-order transitions from crossover regions in the bare parameter space of the lattice theory. Employing the fact that it terminates in a tricritical line, this surface can be extrapolated to the chiral limit using tricritical scaling with known exponents. Knowing the order of the transitions in the lattice parameter space, conclusions for approaching the continuum chiral limit in the proper order can be drawn. While a narrow first-order region cannot be ruled out, we find initial evidence consistent with a second-order chiral transition in all massless theories with N f ≤ 6, and possibly up to the onset of the conformal window at 9 ≲ N f ∗ $$ {N}_{\mathrm{f}}^{\ast } $$ ≲ 12. A reanalysis of already published O $$ \mathcal{O} $$ (a)-improved N f = 3 Wilson data on N τ ∈ [4, 12] is also consistent with tricritical scaling, and the associated change from first to second-order on the way to the continuum chiral limit. We discuss a modified Columbia plot and a phase diagram for many-flavour QCD that reflect these possible features.

Abstract We find a novel confinement mechanism in the two-flavor dense quark matter proposed recently, that consists of the 2SC condensates and the P-wave diquark condensates of d-quarks. This quark matter exhibiting color superconductivity as well as superfluidity is classified into two phases; confined and deconfined phases of vortices. We establish that the criterion of the confinement is color neutrality of Aharonov-Bohm (AB) phases: vortices exhibiting color non-singlet AB phases are confined by the so-called AB defects to form color-singlet bound states. In the deconfined phase, the most stable vortices are non-Abelian Alice strings, which are superfluid vortices with fractional circulation and non-Abelian color magnetic fluxes therein, exhibiting color non-singlet AB phases. On the other hand, in the confined phase, these non-Abelian vortices are confined to either a baryonic or mesonic bound state in which constituent vortices are connected by AB defects. The baryonic bound state consists of three non-Abelian Alice strings with different color magnetic fluxes with the total flux canceled out connected by a domain wall junction, while the mesonic bound state consists of two non-Abelian Alice strings with the same color magnetic fluxes connected by a single domain wall. Interestingly, the latter contains a color magnetic flux in its core, but this can exist because of color neutrality of its AB phase.

Abstract The thermal properties of light mesons, including the temperature dependence of their masses (both screening and pole masses) and thermal widths, are studied in a two-flavor (N f = 2) soft-wall AdS/QCD model. By solving the spatial correlation functions, we extract the screening masses (m scr) from their poles. The screening masses of pseudo-scalar (π) and axial-vector (a 1) mesons increase almost monotonously with the increase of temperature. The screening masses of scalar (σ) and vector (ρ) mesons decrease at low temperature and increase at high temperature. The pole masses (m pole) and the thermal widths (Γ) are extracted from the temporal correlation functions and the corresponding spectral functions. The results indicate that the pole masses have local minima at low temperature and increase at high temperature. The thermal widths increase rapidly above the chiral crossover temperature T cp , indicating the dissociations of mesons at high temperature. Furthermore, the degeneration of the chiral partners (π and σ, ρ and a 1) above T cp is observed from the screening and pole masses, revealing the chiral symmetry restoration at the hadronic spectrum level. Finally, we numerically verify that the spectral functions in the temporal regime are strongly related to the quasi-normal modes with complex frequencies ω 0 = m pole − iΓ/2.

Abstract We investigate rotating effect on deconfinement phase transition in an Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton (EMD) model in bottom-up holographic QCD approach. By constructing a rotating black hole, which is supposed to be dual to rotating strongly coupled nuclear matter, we investigate the thermodynamic quantities, including entropy density, pressure, energy density, trace anomaly, sound speed and specific heat for both pure gluon system and two-flavor system under rotation. It is shown that those thermodynamic quantities would be enhanced by large angular velocity. Also, we extract the information of phase transition from those thermodynamic quantities, as well as the order parameter of deconfinement phase transition, i.e. the loop operators. It is shown that, in the T − ω plane, for two-flavor case with small chemical potential, the phase transition is always crossover. The transition temperature decreases slowly with angular velocity and chemical potential. For pure gluon system with zero chemical potential, the phase transition is always first order, while at finite chemical potential a critical end point (CEP) will present in the T − ω plane.

Abstract We systematically analyze the effects of the derivatives of the hydrodynamic fields on axial Wigner function that describes the spin polarization vector in phase space. We have included all possible first-order derivative contributions that are allowed by symmetry and compute the associated transport functions at one-loop using the linear response theory. In addition to reproducing known effects due to the temperature gradient and vorticity, we have identified a number of potentially significant contributions that are overlooked previously. In particular, we find that the shear strength, the symmetric and traceless part of the flow gradient, will induce a quadrupole for spin polarization in the phase space. Our results, together with hydrodynamic gradients obtained from hydrodynamic simulations, can be employed as a basis for the interpretation of the Λ (anti-Λ) spin polarization measurement in heavy-ion collisions.

Abstract We investigate a model of interacting Dirac fermions in 2 + 1 dimensions with M flavors and N colors having the U(M)×SU(N ) symmetry. In the large-N limit, we find that the U(M) symmetry is spontaneously broken in a variety of ways. In the vacuum, when the parity-breaking flavor-singlet mass is varied, the ground state undergoes a sequence of M first-order phase transitions, experiencing M + 1 phases characterized by symmetry breaking U(M)→U(M − k)×U(k) with k ∈ {0, 1, 2, · · · , M}, bearing a close resemblance to the vacuum structure of three-dimensional QCD. At finite temperature and chemical potential, a rich phase diagram with first and second-order phase transitions and tricritical points is observed. Also exotic phases with spontaneous symmetry breaking of the form as U(3)→U(1)3, U(4)→U(2)×U(1)2, and U(5)→U(2)2 ×U(1) exist. For a large flavor-singlet mass, the increase of the chemical potential μ brings about M consecutive first-order transitions that separate the low-μ phase diagram with vanishing fermion density from the high-μ region with a high fermion density.

Abstract We investigate chiral symmetry breaking in a model of Dirac fermions with a complexified coupling constant whose imaginary part represents dissipation. We introduce a chiral chemical potential and observe that for real coupling a relativistic BCS-BEC crossover is realized. We solve the model in the mean-field approximation and construct the phase diagram as a function of the complex coupling. It is found that the dynamical mass increases under dissipation, although the chiral symmetry gets restored if dissipation exceeds a threshold.

Abstract Infrared fixed points of gauge theories provide intriguing targets for the modern conformal bootstrap program. In this work we provide some preliminary evidence that a family of gauged fermionic CFTs saturate bootstrap bounds and can potentially be solved with the conformal bootstrap. We start by considering the bootstrap for SO(N) vector 4-point functions in general dimension D. In the large N limit, upper bounds on the scaling dimensions of the lowest SO(N) singlet and traceless symmetric scalars interpolate between two solutions at ∆ = D/2 − 1 and ∆ = D − 1 via generalized free field theory. In 3D the critical O(N) vector models are known to saturate the bootstrap bounds and correspond to the kinks approaching ∆ = 1/2 at large N. We show that the bootstrap bounds also admit another infinite family of kinks T D $$ {\mathcal{T}}_D $$ , which at large N approach solutions containing free fermion bilinears at ∆ = D − 1 from below. The kinks T D $$ {\mathcal{T}}_D $$ appear in general dimensions with a D-dependent critical N * below which the kink disappears. We also study relations between the bounds obtained from the bootstrap with SO(N) vectors, SU(N) fundamentals, and SU(N) × SU(N) bi-fundamentals. We provide a proof for the coincidence between bootstrap bounds with different global symmetries. We show evidence that the proper symmetries of the underlying theories of T D $$ {\mathcal{T}}_D $$ are subgroups of SO(N), and we speculate that the kinks T D $$ {\mathcal{T}}_D $$ relate to the fixed points of gauge theories coupled to fermions.

Abstract The chiral symmetry breaking (χsb) is one of the most fundamental problems in QCD. In this paper, we calculate quark condensation analytically in a holographic QCD model dual to the Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton (EMD) system coupled to a probe scalar field. We find that the black hole phase transition in the EMD system seriously affects χsb. At small chemical potential, χsb behaves as a crossover. For large chemical potential μ > μ c , χsb becomes first order with exactly the same transition temperature as the black hole phase transition by a bypass mechanism. The phase diagram we obtained is qualitatively consistent with the recent results from lattice QCD simulations and NJL models.

We present a strategy based on the step-scaling technique to study non-perturbatively thermal QCD up to very high temperatures. As a first concrete application, we compute the flavour non-singlet meson screening masses at 12 temperatures covering the range from T ∼ 1 GeV up to ∼ 160 GeV in the theory with three massless quarks. The calculation is carried out by Monte Carlo simulations on the lattice by considering large spatial extensions in order to have negligible finite volume effects. For each temperature we have simulated 3 or 4 values of the lattice spacing, so as to perform the continuum limit extrapolation with confidence at a few permille accuracy. Chiral symmetry restoration manifests itself in our results through the degeneracy of the vector and the axial vector channels and of the scalar and the pseudoscalar ones. In the entire range of temperatures explored, the meson screening masses deviate from the free theory result, 2πT, by at most a few percent. These deviations, however, cannot be explained by the known leading term in the QCD coupling constant g up to the highest temperature, where other contributions are still very relevant. In particular the vector-pseudoscalar mass splitting turns out to be of O(g4) in the entire range explored, and it remains clearly visible up to the highest temperature, where the two screening masses are still significantly different within our numerical precision. The pattern of different contributions that we have found explains why it has been difficult in the past to match non-perturbative lattice results at T ∼ 1 GeV with the analytic behaviour at asymptotically high temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-Gaussian fluctuations of baryon density are sensitive to the presence of the conjectured QCD critical point. Their observational consequences are crucial for the ongoing experimental search for this critical point through the beam energy scan program at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). In the expanding fireball created in a heavy-ion collision, critical fluctuations would inescapably fall out of equilibrium and require a systematic description within a dynamical framework. In this paper, we employ newly developed effective field theory (EFT) for fluctuating hydrodynamics to study the real-time critical non-Gaussian fluctuations of a conserved charge density. In particular, we derive the evolution equations for multi-point correlators of density fluctuations and obtain the closed-form solutions with arbitrary initial conditions that can readily be implemented in realistic simulations for heavy-ion collisions. We find that non-linear interactions among noise fields, which are missing in traditional stochastic hydrodynamics, could potentially contribute to the quartic (fourth-order) fluctuations in the scaling regime even at tree level in off-equilibrium situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violation of scale symmetry, scale anomaly, being a radical concept in quantum field theory, is of importance to comprehend the vacuum structure of QCD, and should potentially contribute to the chiral phase transition in thermal QCD, as well as the chiral and U(1) axial symmetry. Though it should be essential, direct evidence of scale anomalies has never been observed in the chiral phase transition. We propose a methodology to detect a scale anomaly in the chiral phase transition, which is an electromagnetically induced scale anomaly: apply a weak magnetic field background onto two-flavor massless QCD with an extremely heavy strange quark, first observe the chiral crossover; second, adjusting the strange quark mass to be smaller and smaller, observe the second-order chiral phase transition, and then the first-order one in the massless-three flavor limit. Thus, the second-order chiral phase transition, observed as the evidence of the quantum scale anomaly, is a new critical endpoint. It turns out that this electromagnetic scale anomaly gets most operative in the weak magnetic field regime, rather than a strong field region. We also briefly address accessibility of lattice QCD, a prospected application to dense matter system, and implications to astrophysical observations, such as gravitational wave productions provided from thermomagnetic QCD-like theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of the QCD chiral phase transition in the limit of vanishing quark masses has remained elusive for a long time, since it cannot be simulated directly on the lattice and is strongly cutoff-dependent. We report on a comprehensive ongoing study using unimproved staggered fermions with Nf ∈ [2, 8] mass-degenerate flavours on Nτ ∈ {4, 6, 8} lattices, in which we locate the chiral critical surface separating regions with first-order transitions from crossover regions in the bare parameter space of the lattice theory. Employing the fact that it terminates in a tricritical line, this surface can be extrapolated to the chiral limit using tricritical scaling with known exponents. Knowing the order of the transitions in the lattice parameter space, conclusions for approaching the continuum chiral limit in the proper order can be drawn. While a narrow first-order region cannot be ruled out, we find initial evidence consistent with a second-order chiral transition in all massless theories with Nf ≤ 6, and possibly up to the onset of the conformal window at 9 ≲ N f ∗ ≲ 12. A reanalysis of already published O (a)-improved Nf = 3 Wilson data on Nτ ∈ [4, 12] is also consistent with tricritical scaling, and the associated change from first to second-order on the way to the continuum chiral limit. We discuss a modified Columbia plot and a phase diagram for many-flavour QCD that reflect these possible features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We demonstrate that the complex Langevin method (CLM) enables calculations in QCD at finite density in a parameter regime in which conventional methods, such as the density of states method and the Taylor expansion method, are not applicable due to the severe sign problem. Here we use the plaquette gauge action with β = 5.7 and four-flavor staggered fermions with degenerate quark mass ma = 0.01 and nonzero quark chemical potential μ. We confirm that a sufficient condition for correct convergence is satisfied for μ/T = 5.2 − 7.2 on a 83 × 16 lattice and μ/T = 1.6 − 9.6 on a 163 × 32 lattice. In particular, the expectation value of the quark number is found to have a plateau with respect to μ with the height of 24 for both lattices. This plateau can be understood from the Fermi distribution of quarks, and its height coincides with the degrees of freedom of a single quark with zero momentum, which is 3 (color) × 4 (flavor) × 2 (spin) = 24. Our results may be viewed as the first step towards the formation of the Fermi sphere, which plays a crucial role in color superconductivity conjectured from effective theories.

Abstract The possibility that nuclear matter at a density relevant to the interior of massive neutron stars may be a quarkynoic matter has attracted considerable recent interest. In this work, we construct a phenomenological model to describe the quarkyonic matter, that would allow quantitative calculations of its various properties within a well-defined field theoretical framework. This is implemented by synthesizing the Walecka model together with the quark-meson model, where both quark and nucleon degrees of freedom are present based on the quarkyonic scenario. With this model we compute at mean-field level the thermodynamic properties of the symmetric nuclear matter and calibrate model parameters through well-known nuclear physics measurements. We find this model gives a very good description of the symmetric nuclear matter from moderate to high baryon density and demonstrates a continuous transition from nucleon-dominance to quark-dominance for the system.

Abstract We point out a new configuration in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model, allowing baryons in the pointlike approximation to coexist with fundamental quarks. The resulting phase is a holographic realization of quarkyonic matter, which is predicted to occur in QCD at a large number of colors, and possibly plays a role in real-world QCD as well. We find that holographic quarkyonic matter is chirally symmetric and that, for large baryon chemical potentials, it is energetically preferred over pure nuclear matter and over pure quark matter. The zero-temperature transition from nuclear matter to the quarkyonic phase is of first order in the chiral limit and for a realistic pion mass. For pion masses far beyond the physical point we observe a quark-hadron continuity due to the presence of quarkyonic matter.

Abstract We study the ground states of low-density hadronic matter and high-density color-flavor locked color superconducting phase in three-flavor QCD at finite baryon chemical potential under rotation. We find that, in both cases under sufficiently fast rotation, the combination of the rotation-induced topological term for the η′ meson and the QCD anomaly leads to an inhomogeneous condensate of the η′ meson, known as the chiral soliton lattice (CSL). We find that, when baryon chemical potential is much larger than isospin chemical potential, the critical angular velocity for the realization of the η′ CSL is much smaller than that for the π 0 CSL found previously. We also argue that the η′ CSL states in flavor-symmetric QCD at low density and high density should be continuously connected, extending the quark-hadron continuity conjecture in the presence of the rotation.

Abstract We determine the magnetic susceptibility of thermal QCD matter by means of first principles lattice simulations using staggered quarks with physical masses. A novel method is employed that only requires simulations at zero background field, thereby circumventing problems related to magnetic flux quantization. After a careful continuum limit extrapolation, diamagnetic behavior (negative susceptibility) is found at low temperatures and strong paramagnetism (positive susceptibility) at high temperatures. We revisit the decomposition of the magnetic susceptibility into spin- and orbital angular momentum- related contributions. The spin term — related to the normalization of the photon lightcone distribution amplitude at zero temperature — is calculated non-perturbatively and extrapolated to the continuum limit. Having access to both the full magnetic susceptibility and the spin term, we calculate the orbital angular momentum contribution for the first time. The results reveal the opposite of what might be expected based on a free fermion picture. We provide a simple parametrization of the temperature- and magnetic field-dependence of the QCD equation of state that can be used in phenomenological studies.

Abstract We construct the most general low-energy effective lagrangian including local parity violating terms parametrized by an axial chemical potential or chiral imbalance μ 5, up to O p 4 $$ \mathcal{O}\left({p}^4\right) $$ order in the chiral expansion for two light flavours. For that purpose, we work within the Chiral Perturbation Theory framework where only pseudo-NGB fields are included, following the external source method. The O p 2 $$ \mathcal{O}\left({p}^2\right) $$ lagrangian is only modified by constant terms, while the O p 4 $$ \mathcal{O}\left({p}^4\right) $$ one includes new terms proportional to μ 5 2 $$ {\mu}_5^2 $$ and new low-energy constants (LEC), which are renormalized and related to particular observables. In particular, we analyze the corrections to the pion dispersion relation and observables related to the vacuum energy density, namely the light quark condensate, the chiral and topological susceptibilities and the chiral charge density, providing numerical determinations of the new LEC when possible. In particular, we explore the dependence of the chiral restoration temperature T c with μ 5. An increasing T c (μ 5) is consistent with our fits to lattice data of the ChPT-based expressions. Although lattice uncertainties are still large and translate into the new LEC determination, a consistent physical description of those observables emerges from our present work, providing a theoretically robust model-independent framework for further study of physical systems where parity-breaking effects may be relevant, such as heavy-ion collisions.

Abstract We consider three-flavor chiral perturbation theory (χPT) at zero temperature and nonzero isospin (μ I ) and strange (μ S ) chemical potentials. The effective potential is calculated to next-to-leading order (NLO) in the π ± -condensed phase, the K ± -condensed phase, and the K 0 / K ¯ 0 $$ {K}^0/{\overline{K}}^0 $$ -condensed phase. It is shown that the transitions from the vacuum phase to these phases are second order and take place when, μ I = m π , 1 2 μ I + μ S = m K $$ \left|{\mu}_I\right|={m}_{\pi },\left|\frac{1}{2}{\mu}_I+{\mu}_S\right|={m}_K $$ , and − 1 2 μ I + μ S = m K $$ \left|-\frac{1}{2}{\mu}_I+{\mu}_S\right|={m}_K $$ , respectively at tree level and remains unchanged at NLO. The transition between the two condensed phases is first order. The effective potential in the pion-condensed phase is independent of μ S and in the kaon-condensed phases, it only depends on the combinations ± 1 2 μ I + μ S $$ \pm \frac{1}{2}{\mu}_I+{\mu}_S $$ and not separately on μ I and μ S . We calculate the pressure, isospin density and the equation of state in the pion-condensed phase and compare our results with recent (2 + 1)-flavor lattice QCD data. We find that the three-flavor χPT results are in good agreement with lattice QCD for μ I < 200 MeV, however for larger values χPT produces values for observables that are consistently above lattice results. For μ I > 200 MeV, the two-flavor results are in better agreement with lattice data. Finally, we consider the observables in the limit of very heavy s-quark, where they reduce to their two-flavor counterparts with renormalized couplings. The disagreement between the predictions of two and three flavor χPT can largely be explained by the differences in the experimental values of the low-energy constants.

Abstract In this paper the phase structure of dense baryon matter composed of u and d quarks with two colors has been investigated in the presence of baryon μ B , isospin μ I and chiral isospin μ I5 chemical potentials in the framework of Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with quark-antiquark and quark-quark interaction channels. In the chiral limit, it has been shown in the mean-field approximation that the duality between phases with spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and condensation of charged pions, found in the three color case, remains valid in the two color case. In addition, it has been shown that there are two more dualities in the phase diagram in two color case, namely (as in the case with μ I5 = 0), at μ I5 ≠ 0 the general (μ, μ I , μ I5)-phase portrait of the model has dual symmetry between the phase with condensation of charged pions and the phase with diquark condensation. This duality stays exact even in the physical point, m 0 ≠ 0. And at m 0 = 0 the (μ, μ I , μ I5)- phase portrait becomes even more symmetrical, since dual symmetry between phases with spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and diquark condensation appears. It is shown that due to the dualities the phase diagram is extremely symmetric and has interlacing structure. One can show that the phase portrait of two-color NJL model can be obtained just by duality properties from the results of investigations of three-color NJL model (it was noticed only after the numerical calculations have been performed). Three-color case shares only one duality of the two color one, and one can only see a facet of this enormously symmetric picture in the case of three colors. Using dualities only, it is possible to show that there are no mixed phases (phases with two non-zero condensates). This prediction of dualities is of great use, because for sure it can be shown by the direct calculations but it would be enormously more complicated and time-consuming numerically.

Abstract All approaches currently used to study finite baryon density lattice QCD suffer from uncontrolled systematic uncertainties in addition to the well-known sign problem. We formulate and test an algorithm, sign reweighting, that works directly at finite μ = μ B /3 and is yet free from any such uncontrolled systematics. With this algorithm the only problem is the sign problem itself. This approach involves the generation of configurations with the positive fermionic weight |Re det D(μ)| where D(μ) is the Dirac matrix and the signs sign(Re det D(μ)) = ±1 are handled by a discrete reweighting. Hence there are only two sectors, +1 and −1 and as long as the average 〈±1〉 ≠ 0 (with respect to the positive weight) this discrete reweighting by the signs carries no overlap problem and the results are reliable. The approach is tested on N t = 4 lattices with 2 + 1 flavors and physical quark masses using the unimproved staggered discretization. By measuring the Fisher (sometimes also called Lee-Yang) zeros in the bare coupling on spatial lattices L/a = 8, 10, 12 we conclude that the cross-over present at μ = 0 becomes stronger at μ > 0 and is consistent with a true phase transition at around μ B /T ∼ 2.4.

Abstract We speculate that the weak gravity conjecture applied to theories with holographic duals bans the existence of disordered phases at zero temperature. We test this idea by introducing a non-zero baryon chemical potential in a deformation of the SU(N c ) × SU(N c ) Klebanov-Witten gauge theory with broken supersymmetry and conformal invariance. At low temperature, a disordered phase dual to a black brane geometry is unstable for low chemical potentials and metastable for high values. In the metastable phase, states with a partial Higgsing of the gauge group are favored over the normal disordered phase. This is reflected in the properties of the effective potential for color branes in the dual geometry, where the appearance of a global minimum outside the horizon signals the onset of a brane nucleation instability. When the Higgsing involves only one of the group factors, the global minimum remains at a finite distance from the horizon, making it possible to construct holographic duals to metastable “color superconducting” states. We also consider branes dual to excitations with baryon charge, but find that the extremal geometry remains marginally stable against the emission of particles carrying baryon charge independently of the strength of the deformation.

Abstract We study the phase structure of the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model in the plane of temperature and baryon chemical potential, including the effect of a nonzero current quark mass. Our study is performed in the decompactified limit of the model, which, at least regarding the chiral phase transition, appears to be closer to real-world QCD than the original version. Following earlier studies, we account for the quark mass in an effective way based on an open Wilson line operator whose expectation value is identified with the chiral condensate. We find that the quark mass stabilizes a configuration with string sources and point out that this phase plays an important role in the phase diagram. Furthermore, we show that the quark mass breaks up the first-order chiral phase transition curve and introduces critical points to the phase diagram. Similarities of the phase structure to other holographic approaches and to lattice simulations of “heavy QCD” are found and discussed. By making holographic QCD more realistic, our results open the door to a better understanding of real-world strongly coupled hot and dense matter.

Abstract We delineate equilibrium phase structure and topological charge distribution of dense two-colour QCD at low temperature by using a lattice simulation with two-flavour Wilson fermions that has a chemical potential μ and a diquark source j incorporated. We systematically measure the diquark condensate, the Polyakov loop, the quark number density and the chiral condensate with improved accuracy and j → 0 extrapolation over earlier publications; the known qualitative features of the low temperature phase diagram, which is composed of the hadronic, Bose-Einstein condensed (BEC) and BCS phases, are reproduced. In addition, we newly find that around the boundary between the hadronic and BEC phases, nonzero quark number density occurs even in the hadronic phase in contrast to the prediction of the chiral perturbation theory (ChPT), while the diquark condensate approaches zero in a manner that is consistent with the ChPT prediction. At the highest μ, which is of order the inverse of the lattice spacing, all the above observables change drastically, which implies a lattice artifact. Finally, at temperature of order 0.45T c , where T c is the chiral transition temperature at zero chemical potential, the topological susceptibility is calculated from a gradient-flow method and found to be almost constant for all the values of μ ranging from the hadronic to BCS phase. This is a contrast to the case of 0.89T c in which the topological susceptibility becomes small as the hadronic phase changes into the quark-gluon plasma phase.

Abstract Recently, it has been shown that the ground state of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in sufficiently strong magnetic fields and at moderate baryon number chemical po- tential carries a crystalline condensate of neutral pions: the chiral soliton lattice (CSL) [1]. While the result was obtained in a model-independent manner using effective field the- ory techniques, its realization from first principles using lattice Monte Carlo simulation is hampered by the infamous sign problem. Here we show that CSL, or a similar inhomoge- neous phase, also appears in the phase diagram of a class of vector-like gauge theories that do not suffer from the sign problem even in the presence of a baryon chemical potential and external magnetic field. We also show that the onset of nonuniform order manifests itself already in the adjacent homogeneous Bose-Einstein-condensation phase through a characteristic roton-like minimum in the dispersion relation of the lowest-lying quasipar- ticle mode. Last but not least, our work gives a class of explicit counterexamples to the long-standing conjecture that positivity of the determinant of the Dirac operator (that is, absence of the sign problem) in a vector-like gauge theory precludes spontaneous breaking of translational invariance, and thus implies the absence of inhomogeneous phases in the phase diagram of the theory.

Abstract We investigate the order of the color superconducting phase transition using the functional renormalization group approach. We analyze the Ginzburg-Landau effective theory of color superconductivity and more generic scalar SU(N c) gauge theories by calculating the β function of the gauge coupling in arbitrary dimension d based on two different regularization schemes. We find that in d = 3, due to gluon fluctuation effects, the β function never admits an infrared fixed point solution. This indicates that, unlike the ordinary superconducting transition, color superconductivity can only show a first-order phase transition.

Abstract We analyze the contribution of the η′ (958) meson in the first two non-trivial moments of the QCD topological charge distribution, namely, the topological susceptibility and the fourth-order cumulant of the vacuum energy density. We perform our study within U(3) Chiral Perturbation Theory up to next-to-next-to-leading order in the combined chiral and large-N c expansion. We also describe the temperature dependence of these two quantities and compare them with previous analyses in the literature. In particular, we discuss the validity of the thermal scaling of the topological susceptibility with the quark condensate, which is intimately connected with a Ward Identity relating both quantities. We also consider isospin breaking corrections from the vacuum misalignment at leading order in the U(3) framework.

Abstract We have recently shown that the ground state of N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4, SU(N c) super Yang- Mills coupled to N f ≪ N c flavors, in the presence of non-zero isospin and R-symmetry charges, is a supersymmetric, superfluid, color superconductor. The holographic description consists of N f D7-brane probes in AdS5 ×S5 with electric and instantonic fields on their worldvolume. These correspond to fundamental strings and D3-branes dissolved on the D7-branes, respectively. Here we use this description to determine the spectrum of mesonic excitations. As expected for a charged superfluid we find non-relativistic, massless Goldstone modes. We also find extra ungapped modes that are not associated to the breaking of any global symmetries but to the supersymmetric nature of the ground state. If the quark mass is much smaller than the scale of spontaneous symmetry breaking a pseudo-Goldstone boson is also present. We highlight some new features that appear only for N f > 2. We show that, in the generic case of unequal R-symmetry charges, the dissolved strings and D3-branes blow up into a D5-brane supertube stretched between the D7-branes.

Abstract Lattice QCD with heavy quarks reduces to a three-dimensional effective theory of Polyakov loops, which is amenable to series expansion methods. We analyse the effective theory in the cold and dense regime for a general number of colours, N c . In particular, we investigate the transition from a hadron gas to baryon condensation. For any finite lattice spacing, we find the transition to become stronger, i.e. ultimately first-order, as N c is made large. Moreover, in the baryon condensed regime, we find the pressure to scale as p ∼ N c through three orders in the hopping expansion. Such a phase differs from a hadron gas with p ∼ N c 0 $$ {N}_c^0 $$ , or a quark gluon plasma, p ∼ N c 2 $$ {N}_c^2 $$ , and was termed quarkyonic in the literature, since it shows both baryon-like and quark-like aspects. A lattice filling with baryon number shows a rapid and smooth transition from condensing baryons to a crystal of saturated quark matter, due to the Pauli principle, and is consistent with this picture. For continuum physics, the continuum limit needs to be taken before the large N c limit, which is not yet possible in practice. However, in the controlled range of lattice spacings and N c -values, our results are stable when the limits are approached in this order. We discuss possible implications for physical QCD.

We find a novel confinement mechanism in the two-flavor dense quark matter proposed recently, that consists of the 2SC condensates and the P-wave diquark condensates of d-quarks. This quark matter exhibiting color superconductivity as well as superfluidity is classified into two phases; confined and deconfined phases of vortices. We establish that the criterion of the confinement is color neutrality of Aharonov-Bohm (AB) phases: vortices exhibiting color non-singlet AB phases are confined by the so-called AB defects to form color-singlet bound states. In the deconfined phase, the most stable vortices are non-Abelian Alice strings, which are superfluid vortices with fractional circulation and non-Abelian color magnetic fluxes therein, exhibiting color non-singlet AB phases. On the other hand, in the confined phase, these non-Abelian vortices are confined to either a baryonic or mesonic bound state in which constituent vortices are connected by AB defects. The baryonic bound state consists of three non-Abelian Alice strings with different color magnetic fluxes with the total flux canceled out connected by a domain wall junction, while the mesonic bound state consists of two non-Abelian Alice strings with the same color magnetic fluxes connected by a single domain wall. Interestingly, the latter contains a color magnetic flux in its core, but this can exist because of color neutrality of its AB phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermal properties of light mesons, including the temperature dependence of their masses (both screening and pole masses) and thermal widths, are studied in a two-flavor (Nf = 2) soft-wall AdS/QCD model. By solving the spatial correlation functions, we extract the screening masses (mscr) from their poles. The screening masses of pseudo-scalar (π) and axial-vector (a1) mesons increase almost monotonously with the increase of temperature. The screening masses of scalar (σ) and vector (ρ) mesons decrease at low temperature and increase at high temperature. The pole masses (mpole) and the thermal widths (Γ) are extracted from the temporal correlation functions and the corresponding spectral functions. The results indicate that the pole masses have local minima at low temperature and increase at high temperature. The thermal widths increase rapidly above the chiral crossover temperature Tcp, indicating the dissociations of mesons at high temperature. Furthermore, the degeneration of the chiral partners (π and σ, ρ and a1) above Tcp is observed from the screening and pole masses, revealing the chiral symmetry restoration at the hadronic spectrum level. Finally, we numerically verify that the spectral functions in the temporal regime are strongly related to the quasi-normal modes with complex frequencies ω0 = mpole− iΓ/2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We systematically analyze the effects of the derivatives of the hydrodynamic fields on axial Wigner function that describes the spin polarization vector in phase space. We have included all possible first-order derivative contributions that are allowed by symmetry and compute the associated transport functions at one-loop using the linear response theory. In addition to reproducing known effects due to the temperature gradient and vorticity, we have identified a number of potentially significant contributions that are overlooked previously. In particular, we find that the shear strength, the symmetric and traceless part of the flow gradient, will induce a quadrupole for spin polarization in the phase space. Our results, together with hydrodynamic gradients obtained from hydrodynamic simulations, can be employed as a basis for the interpretation of the Λ (anti-Λ) spin polarization measurement in heavy-ion collisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate rotating effect on deconfinement phase transition in an Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton (EMD) model in bottom-up holographic QCD approach. By constructing a rotating black hole, which is supposed to be dual to rotating strongly coupled nuclear matter, we investigate the thermodynamic quantities, including entropy density, pressure, energy density, trace anomaly, sound speed and specific heat for both pure gluon system and two-flavor system under rotation. It is shown that those thermodynamic quantities would be enhanced by large angular velocity. Also, we extract the information of phase transition from those thermodynamic quantities, as well as the order parameter of deconfinement phase transition, i.e. the loop operators. It is shown that, in the T − ω plane, for two-flavor case with small chemical potential, the phase transition is always crossover. The transition temperature decreases slowly with angular velocity and chemical potential. For pure gluon system with zero chemical potential, the phase transition is always first order, while at finite chemical potential a critical end point (CEP) will present in the T − ω plane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate a model of interacting Dirac fermions in 2 + 1 dimensions with M flavors and N colors having the U(M)×SU(N) symmetry. In the large-N limit, we find that the U(M) symmetry is spontaneously broken in a variety of ways. In the vacuum, when the parity-breaking flavor-singlet mass is varied, the ground state undergoes a sequence of M first-order phase transitions, experiencing M + 1 phases characterized by symmetry breaking U(M)→U(M − k)×U(k) with k ∈ {0, 1, 2, · · · , M}, bearing a close resemblance to the vacuum structure of three-dimensional QCD. At finite temperature and chemical potential, a rich phase diagram with first and second-order phase transitions and tricritical points is observed. Also exotic phases with spontaneous symmetry breaking of the form as U(3)→U(1)3, U(4)→U(2)×U(1)2, and U(5)→U(2)2×U(1) exist. For a large flavor-singlet mass, the increase of the chemical potential μ brings about M consecutive first-order transitions that separate the low-μ phase diagram with vanishing fermion density from the high-μ region with a high fermion density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We determine the baryon spectrum of 1 + 1 + 1-flavor QCD in the presence of strong background magnetic fields using lattice simulations at physical quark masses for the first time. Our results show a splitting within multiplets according to the electric charge of the baryons and reveal, in particular, a reduction of the nucleon masses for strong magnetic fields. This first-principles input is used to define constituent quark masses and is employed to set the free parameters of the Polyakov loop-extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model in a magnetic field-dependent manner. The so constructed model is shown to exhibit inverse magnetic catalysis at high temperatures and a reduction of the transition temperature as the magnetic field grows — in line with non-perturbative lattice results. This is contrary to the naive variant of this model, which gives incorrect results for this fundamental phase diagram. Our findings demonstrate that the magnetic field dependence of the PNJL model can be reconciled with the lattice findings in a systematic way, employing solely zero-temperature first-principles input.

Abstract We investigate the QCD phase diagram for nonzero background magnetic fields using first-principles lattice simulations. At the physical point (in terms of quark masses), the thermodynamics of this system is controlled by two opposing effects: magnetic catalysis (enhancement of the quark condensate) at low temperature and inverse magnetic catalysis (reduction of the condensate) in the transition region. While the former is known to be robust and independent of the details of the interactions, inverse catalysis arises as a result of a delicate competition, effective only for light quarks. By performing simulations at different quark masses, we determine the pion mass above which inverse catalysis does not take place in the transition region anymore. Even for pions heavier than this limiting value — where the quark condensate undergoes magnetic catalysis — our results are consistent with the notion that the transition temperature is reduced by the magnetic field. These findings will be useful to guide low-energy models and effective theories of QCD.

Abstract We establish a holographic bottom-up model which covers both the baryonic and quark matter phases in cold and dense QCD. This is obtained by including the baryons using simple approximation schemes in the V-QCD model, which also includes the backreaction of the quark matter to the dynamics of pure Yang-Mills. We examine two approaches for homogeneous baryon matter: baryons as a thin layer of noninteracting matter in the holographic bulk, and baryons with a homogeneous bulk gauge field. We find that the second approach exhibits phenomenologically reasonable features. At zero temperature, the vacuum, baryon, and quark matter phases are separated by strongly first order transitions as the chemical potential varies. The equation of state in the baryonic phase is found to be stiff, i.e., the speed of sound clearly exceeds the value c s 2 = 1/3 of conformal plasmas at high baryon densities.

Abstract We discuss the low-energy dynamics of superfluidity with topological order in (3 + 1) spacetime dimensions. We generalize a topological BF theory by introducing a non-square K matrix, and this generalized BF theory can describe massless Nambu-Goldstone bosons and anyonic statistics between vortices and quasiparticles. We discuss the general structure of discrete and continuous higher-form symmetries in this theory, which can be used to classify quantum phases. We describe how to identify the appearance of topological order in such systems and discuss its relation to a mixed ’t Hooft anomaly between discrete higher-form symmetries. We apply this framework to the color-flavor locked phase of dense QCD, which shows anyonic particle-vortex statistics while no topological order appears. An explicit example of superfluidity with topological order is discussed.

Abstract It has been shown in [15, 70] in the framework of Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with the assumption of spatially homogeneous condensates that in the large-N c limit (N c is the number of quark colours) there exist three dual symmetries of the thermodynamic potential, which describes dense quark matter with chiral and isospin imbalances. The main duality is between the chiral symmetry breaking and the charged pion condensation phenomena. There have been a lot of studies and hints that the ground state could be characterized by spatially inhomogeneous condensates, so the question arises if duality is a rather deep property of the phase structure or just accidental property in the homogeneous case. In this paper we have shown that even if the phase diagram contains phases with spatially inhomogeneous condensates, it still possesses the property of this main duality. Two other dual symmetries are not realized in the theory if it is investigated within an inhomogeneous approach to a ground state. Based on various previously studied aspects of the QCD phase diagram of dense isospin asymmetric matter with possible inhomogeneous condensates, in the present paper a unified picture and full phase diagram of dense quark matter with isospin imbalance have been assembled. Acting on this diagram by a dual transformation, we obtained, in the framework of an approach with spatially inhomogeneous condensates and without any calculations, a full phase diagram of chirally asymmetric dense medium. This example shows that the duality is not just entertaining mathematical property but an instrument with very high predictivity power. The obtained phase diagram is quite rich and contains various spatially inhomogeneous phases.

Abstract We study QCD with massless quarks on ℝ3 × S 1 under symmetry-twisted boundary conditions with small compactification radius, i.e. at high temperatures. Under suitable boundary conditions, the theory acquires a part of the center symmetry and it is spontaneously broken at high temperatures. We show that these vacua at high temperatures can be regarded as different symmetry-protected topological orders, and the domain walls between them support nontrivial massless gauge theories as a consequence of anomaly-inflow mechanism. At sufficiently high temperatures, we can perform the semi-classical analysis to obtain the domain-wall theory, and 2d U(N c − 1) gauge theories with massless fermions match the ’t Hooft anomaly. We perform these analysis for the high-temperature domain wall of ℤ N c $$ {\mathbb{Z}}_{N_{\mathrm{c}}} $$ -QCD and also of Roberge-Weiss phase transitions.

Abstract In this paper we study the interactions among a static quark-antiquark pair in the presence of dense two-color quark matter with lattice simulation. To this end we compute Polyakov line correlation functions and determine the renormalized color averaged, color singlet and color triplet grand potentials. The color singlet grand potential allows us to elucidate the number of quarks induced by a static quark antiquark source, as well as the internal energy of such a pair in dense quark matter. We furthermore determine the screening length, which in the confinement phase is synonymous with the string breaking distance. The screening length is a decreasing function of baryon density, due to the possibility to break the interquark string via a scalar diquark condensate at high density. We also study the large distance properties of the color singlet grand potential i a dense medium and find that it is well described by a simple Debye screening formula, parameterized by a Debye mass and an effective coupling constant. The latter is of order of unity, i.e. even at large density two-color quark matter is a strongly correlated system.

Abstract We study the phases of the SU(N 1) × SU(N 2) gauge theory with a bifundamental fermion in 3+1 dimensions. We show that the discrete anomalies and Berry phases associated to the one-form symmetry of the theory allow for several topologically distinct phase diagrams. We identify several limits of the theory where the phase diagram can be determined using various controlled approximations. When the two ranks are equal N 1 = N 2, these limits all lead to the same topology for the phase diagram and provide a consistent global understanding of the phases of the theory. When N 1 ≠ N 2, different limits lead to distinct topologies of the phase diagram. This necessarily implies non-trivial physics at some intermediate regimes of parameter space. In the large N 1,2 limit, we argue that the topological transitions are accounted for by a (non-supersymmetric) duality cascade as one varies the parameters of the theory.

Abstract We investigate the effects of anisotropy on the chiral condensate in a holographic model of QCD with a fully backreacted quark sector at vanishing chemical potential. The high temperature deconfined phase is therefore a neutral and anisotropic plasma showing different pressure gradients along different spatial directions, similar to the state produced in noncentral heavy-ion collisions. We find that the chiral transition occurs at a lower temperature in the presence of anisotropy. Equivalently, we find that anisotropy acts destructively on the chiral condensate near the transition temperature. These are precisely the same footprints as the “inverse magnetic catalysis” i.e. the destruction of the condensate with increasing magnetic field observed earlier on the lattice, in effective field theory models and in holography. Based on our findings we suggest, in accordance with the conjecture of [1], that the cause for the inverse magnetic catalysis may be the anisotropy caused by the presence of the magnetic field instead of the charge dynamics created by it. We conclude that the weakening of the chiral condensate due to anisotropy is more general than that due to a magnetic field and we coin the former “inverse anisotropic catalysis”. Finally, we observe that any amount of anisotropy changes the IR physics substantially: the geometry is AdS4 × ℝ up to small corrections, confinement is present only up to a certain scale, and the particles acquire finite widths.