We use three dimensional reduced effective field theory (EQCD) and lattice calculations to determine the quark number susceptibility of QCD at high temperature. We find our results to agree well with known perturbative expansion as well as with other lattice data.
The chiral susceptibility, or the first derivative of the chiral condensate with respect to the quark mass, is often used as a probe for the QCD phase transition since the chiral condensate is an order parameter of $SU(2)_L times SU(2)_R$ symmetry br
eaking. However, the chiral condensate also breaks the axial $U(1)$ symmetry, which is usually not paid attention to as it is already broken by anomaly. We investigate the susceptibilities in the scalar and pseudoscalar channels in order to quantify how much the axial $U(1)$ anomaly contributes to the chiral phase transition. Employing a chirally symmetric lattice Dirac operator, and its eigenmode decomposition, we separate the axial $U(1)$ breaking effects from others. Our result in two-flavor QCD indicates that the chiral susceptibility is dominated by the axial $U(1)$ anomaly at temperatures $Tgtrsim 190$ MeV after the quadratically divergent constant is subtracted.
We study the topological charge in $N_f=2$ QCD at finite temperature using Mobius domain-wall fermions. The susceptibility $chi_t$ of the topological charge defined either by the index of overlap Dirac operator or a gluonic operator is investigated a
t several values of temperature $T (>T_c)$ varying the quark mass. A strong suppression of the susceptibility is observed below a certain value of the quark mass. The relation with the restoration of $U_A(1)$ is discussed.
We explore the distribution of the energy momentum tensor (EMT) around quark--anti-quark and single quark at nonzero temperature in SU(3) Yang-Mills gauge theory by extending our previous study on the EMT distribution in static quark--anti-quark syst
ems in vacuum. We discuss the disappearance of the flux tube structure observed in the vacuum simulation. We investigate the total stress acting on the mid-plane between a quark and an anti-quark and show that it agrees with the force obtained from the derivative of the free energy. The color Debye screening effect in the deconfined phase is also discussed in terms of the EMT distribution.
We study the quark number susceptibility, an indicator of QCD phase transition, in the hard wall and soft wall models of hQCD. We find that the susceptibilities in both models are the same, jumping up at the deconfinement phase transition temperature
. We also find that the diffusion constant in the soft wall model is enhanced compared to the one in the hard wall model.
We review important ideas on nuclear and quark matter description on the basis of high- temperature field theory concepts, like resummation, dimensional reduction, interaction scale separation and spectral function modification in media. Statistical
and thermodynamical concepts are spotted in the light of these methods concentrating on the - partially still open - problems of the hadronization process.