We study the phase diagram of QCD with the help of order parameters for chiral symmetry breaking and quark confinement. We also introduce a new order parameter for the confinement phase transition, which is related to the quark density. It is easily accessible by different theoretical approaches, such as functional approaches or lattice simulations. Its relation to the Polyakov loop expectation value is discussed and the QCD phase diagram is analysed. Our results suggest a close relation between the chiral and the confinement phase transition.
We study the relation between quark confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in QCD. Using lattice QCD formalism, we analytically express the various confinement indicators, such as the Polyakov loop, its fluctuations, the Wilson loop, the inter-quark potential and the string tension, in terms of the Dirac eigenmodes. In the Dirac spectral representation, there appears a power of the Dirac eigenvalue $lambda_n$ such as $lambda_n^{N_t-1}$, which behaves as a reduction factor for small $lambda_n$. Consequently, since this reduction factor cannot be cancelled, the low-lying Dirac eigenmodes give negligibly small contribution to the confinement quantities,while they are essential for chiral symmetry breaking. These relations indicate no direct, one-to-one correspondence between confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in QCD. In other words, there is some independence of quark confinement from chiral symmetry breaking, which can generally lead to different transition temperatures/densities for deconfinement and chiral restoration. We also investigate the Polyakov loop in terms of the eigenmodes of the Wilson, the clover and the domain-wall fermion kernels, respectively, and find the similar results. The independence of quark confinement from chiral symmetry breaking seems to be natural, because confinement is realized independently of quark masses and heavy quarks are also confined even without the chiral symmetry.
We start with the relation between the chiral symmetry breaking and gauge field topology. New lattice result further enhance the notion of Zero Mode Zone, a very narrow strip of states with quasizero Dirac eigenvalues. Then we move to the issue of origin of mass and Brown-RHo scaling: a number of empirical facts contradicts to the idea that masses of quarks and such hadrons as $rho,N$ decrease near $T_c$. We argue that while at $T=0$ the main contribution to the effective quark mass is chirally odd $m_{snchi}$, near $T_c$ it rotates to chirally-even component $m_chi$, because infinite clusters of topological solitons gets split into finite ones. Recent progress in understanding of topology require introduction of nonzero holonomy $<A_0> eq 0$, which splits instantons into $N_c$ (anti)selfdual instanton-dyons. Qualitative progress, as well as first numerical studios of the dyon ensemble are reported. New connections between chiral symmetry breaking and confinement are recently understood, since instanton-dyons generates holonomy potential with a minimum at confining value, if the ensemble is dense enough.
The infrared behavior of the quark-gluon vertex of quenched Landau gauge QCD is studied by analyzing its Dyson-Schwinger equation. Building on previously obtained results for Green functions in the Yang-Mills sector we analytically derive the existence of power-law infrared singularities for this vertex. We establish that dynamical chiral symmetry breaking leads to the self-consistent generation of components of the quark-gluon vertex forbidden when chiral symmetry is forced to stay in the Wigner-Weyl mode. In the latter case the running strong coupling assumes an infrared fixed point. If chiral symmetry is broken, either dynamically or explicitely, the running coupling is infrared divergent. Based on a truncation for the quark-gluon vertex Dyson-Schwinger equation which respects the analytically determined infrared behavior numerical results for the coupled system of the quark propagator and vertex Dyson-Schwinger equation are presented. The resulting quark mass function as well as the vertex function show only a very weak dependence on the current quark mass in the deep infrared. From this we infer by an analysis of the quark-quark scattering kernel a linearly rising quark potential with an almost mass independent string tension in the case of broken chiral symmetry. Enforcing chiral symmetry does lead to a Coulomb type potential. Therefore we conclude that chiral symmetry breaking and confinement are closely related. Furthermore we discuss aspects of confinement as the absence of long-range van-der-Waals forces and Casimir scaling. An examination of experimental data for quarkonia provides further evidence for the viability of the presented mechanism for quark confinement in the Landau gauge.
We establish that QED3 can possess a critical number of flavours, N_f^c, associated with dynamical chiral symmetry breaking if, and only if, the fermion wave function renormalisation and photon vacuum polarisation are homogeneous functions at infrared momenta when the fermion mass function vanishes. The Ward identity entails that the fermion-photon vertex possesses the same property and ensures a simple relationship between the homogeneity degrees of each of these functions. Simple models for the photon vacuum polarisation and fermion-photon vertex are used to illustrate these observations. The existence and value of N_f^c are contingent upon the precise form of the vertex but any discussion of gauge dependence is moot. We introduce an order parameter for confinement. Chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement are coincident owing to an abrupt change in the analytic properties of the fermion propagator when a nonzero scalar self-energy becomes insupportable.
The relative contributions of explicit and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in QCD models of the quark-gap equation are studied in dependence of frequently employed ansatze for the dressed interaction and quark-gluon vertex. The explicit symmetry breaking contributions are defined by a constituent-quark sigma term whereas the combined effects of explicit and dynamical symmetry breaking are described by a Euclidean constituent-mass solution. We extend this study of the gap equation to a quark-gluon vertex beyond the Abelian approximation complemented with numerical gluon- and ghost-dressing functions from lattice QCD. We find that the ratio of the sigma term over the Euclidean mass is largely independent of nonperturbative interaction and vertex models for current-quark masses, $m_{u,d}(mu) leq m(mu) leq m_b(mu)$, and equal contributions of explicit and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking occur at $m(mu) approx 400$~MeV. For massive solutions of the gap equation with lattice propagators this value decreases to about 200~MeV.