No Arabic abstract
The confinement-deconfinement transition is discussed from topological viewpoints. The topological change of the system is achieved by introducing the dimensionless imaginary chemical potential ($theta$). Then, the non-trivial free-energy degeneracy becomes the signal of the deconfinement transition and it can be visualized by using the map of the thermodynamic quantities to the circle $S^1$ along $theta$. To understand this topological deconfinement transition at finite real quark chemical potential ($mu_mathrm{R}$), we consider the isospin chemical potential ($mu_mathrm{iso}$) in the effective model of QCD. The phase diagram at finite $mu_mathrm{iso}$ is identical with that at finite $mu_mathrm{R}$ outside of the pion-condensed phase at least in the large-$N_mathrm{c}$ limit via the well-known orbifold equivalence. In the present effective model, the topological deconfinement transition does not show a significant dependence on $mu_mathrm{iso}$ and then we can expect that this tendency also appears at small $mu_mathrm{R}$. Also, the chiral transition and the topological deconfinement transition seems to be weakly correlated. If we will access lattice QCD data for the temperature dependence of the quark number density at finite $mu_mathrm{iso}$ with $theta=pi/3$, our surmise can be judged.
The phase structure of two-flavor QCD is explored for thermal systems with finite baryon- and isospin-chemical potentials, mu_B and mu_{iso}, by using the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. The PNJL model with the scalar-type eight-quark interaction can reproduce lattice QCD data at not only mu_{iso}=mu_B=0 but also mu_{iso}>0 and mu_B=0. In the mu_{iso}-mu_{B}-T space, where T is temperature, the critical endpoint of the chiral phase transition in the mu_B-T plane at mu_{iso}=0 moves to the tricritical point of the pion-superfluidity phase transition in the mu_{iso}-T plane at mu_B=0 as mu_{iso} increases. The thermodynamics at small T is controlled by sqrt{sigma^2+pi^2} defined by the chiral and pion condensates, sigma and pi.
We study the phase diagram of QCD at finite isospin density using two flavors of staggered quarks. We investigate the low temperature region of the phase diagram where we find a pion condensation phase at high chemical potential. We started a basic analysis of the spectrum at finite isospin density. In particular, we measured pion, rho and nucleon masses inside and outside of the pion condensation phase. In agreement with previous studies in two-color QCD at finite baryon density we find that the Polyakov loop does not depend on the density in the staggered formulation.
We show that the nonlocal two-flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model predicts the enhancement of both chiral and axial symmetry breaking as the chiral imbalance of hot QCD matter, regulated by a chiral chemical potential $mu_5$, increases. The two crossovers are reasonably close to each other in the range of $mu_5$ examined here and the pseudocritical temperatures rise with $mu_5$. The curvatures of the chiral and axial crossovers for the chiral quark chemical potential approximately coincide and give $kappa_5 simeq - 0.011$. We point out that the presence of $mu_5$ in thermodynamic equilibrium is inconsistent with the fact that the chiral charge is not a Noether-conserved quantity for massive fermions. The chiral chemical potential should not, therefore, be considered as a true chemical potential that sets a thermodynamically stable environment in the massive theory, but rather than as a new coupling that may require a renormalization in the ultraviolet domain. The divergence of an unrenormalized chiral density, corr{coming from zero-point fermionic fluctuations,} is a consequence of this property. We propose a solution to this problem via a renormalization procedure.
In this paper, we consider two-flavor QCD at zero temperature and finite isospin chemical potential ($mu_I$) using a model-independent analysis within chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order. We calculate the effective potential, the chiral condensate and the pion condensate in the pion-condensed phase at both zero and nonzero pionic source. We compare our finite pionic source results for the chiral condensate and the pion condensate with recent (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD results and find that they are in excellent agreement.
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.