Lattice QCD at finite chemical potential is difficult due to the sign problem. We use stochastic quantization and complex Langevin dynamics to study this issue. First results for QCD in the hopping expansion are encouraging. U(1) and SU(3) one link models are used to gain further insight into why the method appears to be successful.
A nonperturbative lattice study of QCD at finite chemical potential is complicated due to the complex fermion determinant and the sign problem. Here we apply the method of stochastic quantization and complex Langevin dynamics to this problem. We present results for U(1) and SU(3) one link models and QCD at finite chemical potential using the hopping expansion. The phase of the determinant is studied in detail. Even in the region where the sign problem is severe, we find excellent agreement between the Langevin results and exact expressions, if available. We give a partial understanding of this in terms of classical flow diagrams and eigenvalues of the Fokker-Planck equation.
In this paper we test the complex Langevin algorithm for numerical simulations of a random matrix model of QCD with a first order phase transition to a phase of finite baryon density. We observe that a naive implementation of the algorithm leads to phase quenched results, which were also derived analytically in this article. We test several fixes for the convergence issues of the algorithm, in particular the method of gauge cooling, the shifted representation, the deformation technique and reweighted complex Langevin, but only the latter method reproduces the correct analytical results in the region where the quark mass is inside the domain of the eigenvalues. In order to shed more light on the issues of the methods we also apply them to a similar random matrix model with a milder sign problem and no phase transition, and in that case gauge cooling cooling solves the convergence problems as was shown before in the literature.
We extend our work on QCD thermodynamics with 2+1 quark flavors at nonzero chemical potential to finer lattices with $N_t=6$. We study the equation of state and other thermodynamic quantities, such as quark number densities and susceptibilities, and compare them with our previous results at $N_t=4$. We also calculate the effects of the addition of the charm and bottom quarks on the equation of state at zero and nonzero chemical potential. These effects are important for cosmological studies of the early Universe.
We investigate the properties of QCD at finite isospin chemical potential at zero and non-zero temperatures. This theory is not affected by the sign problem and can be simulated using Monte-Carlo techniques. With increasing isospin chemical potential and temperatures below the deconfinement transition the system changes into a phase where charged pions condense, accompanied by an accumulation of low modes of the Dirac operator. The simulations are enabled by the introduction of a pionic source into the action, acting as an infrared regulator for the theory, and physical results are obtained by removing the regulator via an extrapolation. We present an update of our study concerning the associated phase diagram using 2+1 flavours of staggered fermions with physical quark masses and the comparison to Taylor expansion. We also present first results for our determination of the equation of state at finite isospin chemical potential and give an example for a cosmological application. The results can also be used to gain information about QCD at small baryon chemical potentials using reweighting with respect to the pionic source parameter and the chemical potential and we present first steps in this direction.
We study the phase diagram and the thermodynamic properties of QCD at nonzero isospin asymmetry at physical quark masses with staggered quarks. In particular, continuum results for the phase boundary between the normal and the pion condensation phases and the chiral/deconfinement transition are presented. Our findings indicate that the pion condensation phase is restricted to $Tlesssim170$~MeV for isospin chemical potentials up to 325~MeV. We also use the data to test the range of validity of the Taylor expansion method and show first results for the equation of state.