No Arabic abstract
In this paper we carry out a low-temperature scan of the phase diagram of dense two-color QCD with $N_f=2$ quarks. The study is conducted using lattice simulation with rooted staggered quarks. At small chemical potential we observe the hadronic phase, where the theory is in a confining state, chiral symmetry is broken, the baryon density is zero and there is no diquark condensate. At the critical point $mu = m_{pi}/2$ we observe the expected second order transition to Bose-Einstein condensation of scalar diquarks. In this phase the system is still in confinement in conjunction with non-zero baryon density, but the chiral symmetry is restored in the chiral limit. We have also found that in the first two phases the system is well described by chiral perturbation theory. For larger values of the chemical potential the system turns into another phase, where the relevant degrees of freedom are fermions residing inside the Fermi sphere, and the diquark condensation takes place on the Fermi surface. In this phase the system is still in confinement, chiral symmetry is restored and the system is very similar to the quarkyonic state predicted by SU($N_c$) theory at large $N_c$.
We investigate the phase structure of two-color QCD at both real and imaginary chemical potentials mu, performing lattice simulations and analyzing the data with the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. Lattice QCD simulations are done on an 8^3 times 4 lattice with the clover-improved two-flavor Wilson fermion action and the renormalization-group improved Iwasaki gauge action. We test the analytic continuation of physical quantities from imaginary mu to real mu by comparing lattice QCD results calculated at real mu with the result of analytic function the coefficients of which are determined from lattice QCD results at imaginary mu. We also test the validity of the PNJL model by comparing model results with lattice QCD ones. The PNJL model is good in the deconfinement region, but less accurate in the transition and confinement regions. This problem is improved by introducing the baryon degree of freedom to the model. It is also found that the vector-type four-quark interaction is necessary to explain lattice data on the quark number density.
The low-energy spectrum and scattering of two-nucleon systems are studied with lattice quantum chromodynamics using a variational approach. A wide range of interpolating operators are used: dibaryon operators built from products of plane-wave nucleons, hexaquark operators built from six localized quarks, and quasi-local operators inspired by two-nucleon bound-state wavefunctions in low-energy effective theories. Sparsening techniques are used to compute the timeslice-to-all quark propagators required to form correlation-function matrices using products of these operators. Projection of these matrices onto irreducible representations of the cubic group, including spin-orbit coupling, is detailed. Variational methods are applied to constrain the low-energy spectra of two-nucleon systems in a single finite volume with quark masses corresponding to a pion mass of 806 MeV. Results for S- and D-wave phase shifts in the isospin singlet and triplet channels are obtained under the assumption that partial-wave mixing is negligible. Tests of interpolating-operator dependence are used to investigate the reliability of the energy spectra obtained and highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of variational methods. These studies and comparisons to previous studies using the same gauge-field ensemble demonstrate that interpolating-operator dependence can lead to significant effects on the two-nucleon energy spectra obtained using both variational and non-variational methods, including missing energy levels and other discrepancies. While this study is inconclusive regarding the presence of two-nucleon bound states at this quark mass, it provides robust upper bounds on two-nucleon energy levels that can be improved in future calculations using additional interpolating operators and is therefore a step toward reliable nuclear spectroscopy from the underlying Standard Model of particle physics.
We study the dynamics of SU(2) gauge theory with NF=6 Dirac fermions by means of lattice simulation to investigate if they are appropriate to realization of electroweak symmetry breaking. The discrete analogue of beta function for the running coupling constant defined under the Schroedinger functional boundary condition are computed on the lattices up to linear size of L/a=24 and preclude the existence of infrared fixed point below 7.6. Gluonic observables such as heavy quark potential, string tension, Polyakov loop suggest that the target system is in the confining phase even in the massless quark limit.
Recent progress and the latest results on the bulk thermodynamic properties of QCD matter from lattice are reviewed. In particular, I will stress upon the fact that lattice techniques are now entering into precision era where they can provide us with new insights on even the microscopic degrees of freedom in different phases of QCD. I will discuss some instances, from the recent studies of topological fluctuations and screening masses. The progress towards understanding the effects of anomalous $U_A(1)$ symmetry on the chiral crossover transition and transport properties of QCD matter will also be discussed.
We present the crossover line between the quark gluon plasma and the hadron gas phases for small real chemical potentials. First we determine the effect of imaginary values of the chemical potential on the transition temperature using lattice QCD simulations. Then we use various formulas to perform an analytic continuation to real values of the baryo-chemical potential. Our data set maintains strangeness neutrality to match the conditions of heavy ion physics. The systematic errors are under control up to $mu_Bapprox 300$ MeV. For the curvature of the transition line we find that there is an approximate agreement between values from three different observables: the chiral susceptibility, chiral condensate and strange quark susceptibility. The continuum extrapolation is based on $N_t=$ 10, 12 and 16 lattices. By combining the analysis for these three observables we find, for the curvature, the value $kappa = 0.0149 pm 0.0021$.