We study, in the PNJL model, how the entropy of interacting quarks reflects the change in the effective degrees of freedom as the temperature increases through the quark-hadron phase transition. With inclusion of mesonic correlations, the effective d
egrees of freedom change from those of pi and sigma mesons at low temperatures to those of free quarks at high temperatures, with a resultant second order phase deconfinement transition in the chiral limit.
The second-layer phase diagrams of $^4$He and $^3$He adsorbed on graphite are investigated. Intrinsically rounded specific-heat anomalies are observed at 1.4 and 0.9 K, respectively, over extended density regions in between the liquid and incommensur
ate solid phases. They are identified to anomalies associated with the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Halperin-Nelson-Young type two-dimensional melting. The prospected low temperature phase (C2 phase) is a commensurate phase or a $textit{quantum hexatic}$ phase with quasi-bond-orientational order, both containing $textit{zero}$-$textit{point}$ defectons. In either case, this would be the first atomic realization of the $textit{quantum liquid crystal}$, a new state of matter. From the large enhancement of the melting temperature over $^3$He, we propose to assign the observed anomaly of $^4$He-C2 phase at 1.4 K to the hypothetical supersolid or superhexatic transition.
We extend our previous study of the quark-hadron phase transition at finite temperatures with zero net baryon density by two flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with Polyakov loop to the three flavor case in a scheme which incorporates flavor nonet pseud
o scalar and scalar mesonic correlations on equal footing. The role of the axial U(1) breaking Kobayashi-Maskawa-t Hooft interaction on the low-lying thermal excitations is examined. At low temperatures, only mesonic correlations, mainly due to low mass mesonic collective excitations, pions and kaons, dominate the pressure while thermal excitations of quarks are suppressed by the Polyakov loop. As temperature increases, kaons and pions melt into the continuum of quark and anti-quark excitations successively so that hadronic phase changes continuously to the quark phase where quark excitations dominate pressure together with gluon pressure coming from the effective potential for the Polyakov loop. Since we introduce mesons as not elementary fields but auxiliary fields made from quarks, we can describe the phase transition between hadronic phase and quark phase in a unified fashion.
We study the quark-hadron phase transition by using a three flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with the Polyakov loop at zero chemical potential, extending our previous work with two flavor model. We show that the equation of state at low temperatures i
s dominated by pions and kaons as collective modes of quarks and anti-quarks. As temperature increases, mesonic collective modes melt into the continuum of quark and anti-quark so that hadronic phase changes continuously to the quark phase where quark excitations dominate pressure.
We study quark-hadron phase transition at finite temperature with zero net baryon density by the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model for interacting quarks in uniform background temporal color gauge fields. At low temperatures, unphysical thermal quark-antiquar
k excitations which would appear in the mean field approximation, are eliminated by en- forcing vanishing expectation value of the Polyakov-loop of the background gauge field, while at high temperatures this expectation value is taken as unity allowing thermal excitations of free quarks and antiquarks. Mesonic excitations in the low temperature phase appear in the correlation energy as contributions of collective excitations. We describe them in terms of thermal fluctuations of auxiliary fields in one-loop (Gaus- sian) approximation, where pions appear as Nambu-Goldstone modes associated with dynamical symmetry breaking of the chiral symmetry in the limit of vanishing bare quark masses. We show that at low temperatures the equations of state reduces to that of free meson gas with small corrections arising from the composite nature of mesons. At high temperatures, all these collective mesonic excitations melt into continuum of quark anti-quark excitations and mesonic correlations gives only small contributions the pressure of the system.
Spin-spin relaxation time ($T_2$) and magnetic susceptibility ($chi$) of the second layer $^3$He adsorbed on Grafoil, exfoliated graphite, preplated with a monolayer $^4$He are studied by pulsed-NMR in a density range of $0.68 leq rho leq 5.28$ nm$^{
-2}$. The temperature dependence of $chi(T)$ and $chi(T = 0)$ show Fermi fluid behaviour and no evidence of self-condensation are found even at the lowest density $rho = 0.68$ nm$^{-2}$. Density dependence of $T_2$ at $f = 5.5$ MHz shows a broad maximum of 5.7 ms around $rho = 3$ nm$^{-2}$. Since the decrease of $T_2$ in dilute side can not be expected in the ideal 2D fluid, it can be understood as the relaxation caused by a small amount of solid $^3$He at heterogeneity of the substrate. We also measured the Larmor frequency dependence of $T_2$ at $rho = 5.28$ nm$^{-2}$. $1/T_2$ has a $f$-linear dependence similarly to the earlier study on a first layer solid $^3$He. From a comparison between our result and the earlier one, this linearity is almost independent of the particle motion. Now, it could be caused by a microscopic magnetic field inhomogeneity arisen from the mosaic angle spread and diamagnetism of the graphite substrate.
A low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) apparatus which works at temperatures down to about 100 mK is designed to obtain structural information of 2D helium on graphite. This very low temperature system can be realized by reducing the thermal inflow
from the LEED optics to the sample which is cooled by cryogen-free dilution refrigerator. The atomic scattering factor of He is also estimated using a kinematical model, which suggests that the diffraction signal from He atom can well be obtained by using a delay-line detector instead of a fluorescent screen.
