It is well known that life on Earth alters its environment over evolutionary and geological timescales. An important open question is whether this is a result of evolutionary optimization or a universal feature of life. In the latter case, the origin
of life would be coincident with a shift in environmental conditions. Here we present a model for the emergence of life in which replicators are explicitly coupled to their environment through the recycling of a finite supply of resources. The model exhibits a dynamic, first-order phase transition from non-life to life, where the life phase is distinguished by selection on replicators. We show that environmental coupling plays an important role in the dynamics of the transition. The transition corresponds to a redistribution of matter in replicators and their environment, driven by selection on replicators, exhibiting an explosive growth in diversity as replicators are selected. The transition is accurately tracked by the mutual information shared between replicators and their environment. In the absence of successfully repartitioning system resources, the transition fails to complete, leading to the possibility of many frustrated trials before life first emerges. Often, the replicators that initiate the transition are not those that are ultimately selected. The results are consistent with the view that lifes propensity to shape its environment is indeed a universal feature of replicators, characteristic of the transition from non-life to life. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding lifes emergence and evolutionary transitions more broadly.
We present results for the equation of state in (2+1)-flavor QCD using the highly improved staggered quark action and lattices with temporal extent $N_{tau}=6,~8,~10$, and $12$. We show that these data can be reliably extrapolated to the continuum li
mit and obtain a number of thermodynamic quantities and the speed of sound in the temperature range $(130-400)$ MeV. We compare our results with previous calculations, and provide an analytic parameterization of the pressure, from which other thermodynamic quantities can be calculated, for use in phenomenology. We show that the energy density in the crossover region, $145~ {rm MeV} leq T leq 163$ MeV, defined by the chiral transition, is $epsilon_c=(0.18-0.5)~{rm GeV}/{rm fm}^3$, $i.e.$, $(1.2-3.1) epsilon_{rm nuclear}$. At high temperatures, we compare our results with resummed and dimensionally reduced perturbation theory calculations. As a byproduct of our analyses, we obtain the values of the scale parameters $r_0$ from the static quark potential and $w_0$ from the gradient flow.
We report on the first lattice calculation of the QCD phase transition using chiral fermions at physical values of the quark masses. This calculation uses 2+1 quark flavors, spatial volumes between (4 fm$)^3$ and (11 fm$)^3$ and temperatures between
139 and 196 MeV . Each temperature was calculated using a single lattice spacing corresponding to a temporal Euclidean extent of $N_t=8$. The disconnected chiral susceptibility, $chi_{rm disc}$ shows a pronounced peak whose position and height depend sensitively on the quark mass. We find no metastability in the region of the peak and a peak height which does not change when a 5 fm spatial extent is increased to 10 fm. Each result is strong evidence that the QCD ``phase transition is not first order but a continuous cross-over for $m_pi=135$ MeV. The peak location determines a pseudo-critical temperature $T_c = 155(1)(8)$ MeV. Chiral $SU(2)_Ltimes SU(2)_R$ symmetry is fully restored above 164 MeV, but anomalous $U(1)_A$ symmetry breaking is non-zero above $T_c$ and vanishes as $T$ is increased to 196 MeV.
We present results on both the restoration of the spontaneously broken chiral symmetry and the effective restoration of the anomalously broken U(1)_A symmetry in finite temperature QCD at zero chemical potential using lattice QCD. We employ domain wa
ll fermions on lattices with fixed temporal extent N_tau = 8 and spatial extent N_sigma = 16 in a temperature range of T = 139 - 195 MeV, corresponding to lattice spacings of a approx 0.12 - 0.18 fm. In these calculations, we include two degenerate light quarks and a strange quark at fixed pion mass m_pi = 200 MeV. The strange quark mass is set near its physical value. We also present results from a second set of finite temperature gauge configurations at the same volume and temporal extent with slightly heavier pion mass. To study chiral symmetry restoration, we calculate the chiral condensate, the disconnected chiral susceptibility, and susceptibilities in several meson channels of different quantum numbers. To study U(1)_A restoration, we calculate spatial correlators in the scalar and pseudo-scalar channels, as well as the corresponding susceptibilities. Furthermore, we also show results for the eigenvalue spectrum of the Dirac operator as a function of temperature, which can be connected to both U(1)_A and chiral symmetry restoration via Banks-Casher relations.
We calculate the quadratic fluctuations of net baryon number, electric charge and strangeness as well as correlations among these conserved charges in (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD at zero chemical potential. Results are obtained using calculations with t
ree level improved gauge and the highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) actions with almost physical light and strange quark masses at three different values of the lattice cut-off. Our choice of parameters corresponds to a value of 160 MeV for the lightest pseudo scalar Goldstone mass and a physical value of the kaon mass. The three diagonal charge susceptibilities and the correlations among conserved charges have been extrapolated to the continuum limit in the temperature interval 150 MeV <T < 250 MeV. We compare our results with the hadron resonance gas (HRG) model calculations and find agreement with HRG model results only for temperatures T<= 150 MeV. We observe significant deviations in the temperature range 160 MeV < T < 170 MeV and qualitative differences in the behavior of the three conserved charge sectors. At T < 160 MeV quadratic net baryon number fluctuations in QCD agree with HRG model calculations while, the net electric charge fluctuations in QCD are about 10% smaller and net strangeness fluctuations are about 20% larger. These findings are relevant to the discussion of freeze-out conditions in relativistic heavy ion collisions.
