We show that topological superfluid strings/vortices with flux tubes exist in the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase of color superconductors. Using a Ginzburg-Landau free energy we find the configurations of these strings. These strings can form during the transition from the normal phase to the CFL phase at the core of very dense stars. We discuss an interesting scenario for a network of strings and its evolution at the core of dense stars.
Recently it has been argued that the ground state of high density QCD is likely be a combination of the CFL-phase along with condensation of the K^0 field. This state spontaneously breaks a global U(1)_Y symmetry, therefore one would expect the forma
tion of U(1)_Y global strings. We discuss the core structure of these strings and demonstrate that under some conditions the global U(1)_Y symmetry may not be restored inside the string, in contrast with the standard expectations. Instead, K^+ condensation occurs inside the core of the string if a relevant parameter costheta_K = mkzero^2/mu_eff^2 is larger than some critical value theta_K > theta_crit. If this phenomenon happens, the U(1)_Y strings become superconducting and may considerably influence the magnetic properties of dense quark matter, in particular in neutron stars.
We study the early stages of central pA and peripheral AA collisions. Several observables indicate that at a sufficiently large number of participant nucleons the system undergoes a transition into a new explosive regime. By defining a string-string
interaction through the sigma meson exchange and performing molecular dynamics simulation, we argue that one should expect a strong collective implosion of the multi-string spaghetti state, creating significant compression of the system in the transverse plane. Another consequence is the collectivization of the sigma clouds of all strings into a chirally symmetric fireball. We find that these effects happen provided the number of strings $N_s > 30$ or so, as only such a number can compensate a small sigma-string coupling. These findings should help us to understand the subsequent explosive behavior, observed for the particle multiplicities roughly corresponding to this number of strings.
It is sometimes speculated that the sign problem that afflicts many quantum field theories might be reduced or even eliminated by choosing an alternative domain of integration within a complexified extension of the path integral (in the spirit of the
stationary phase integration method). In this paper we start to explore this possibility somewhat systematically. A first inspection reveals the presence of many difficulties but - quite surprisingly - most of them have an interesting solution. In particular, it is possible to regularize the lattice theory on a Lefschetz thimble, where the imaginary part of the action is constant and disappears from all observables. This regularization can be justified in terms of symmetries and perturbation theory. Moreover, it is possible to design a Monte Carlo algorithm that samples the configurations in the thimble. This is done by simulating, effectively, a five dimensional system. We describe the algorithm in detail and analyze its expected cost and stability. Unfortunately, the measure term also produces a phase which is not constant and it is currently very expensive to compute. This residual sign problem is expected to be much milder, as the dominant part of the integral is not affected, but we have still no convincing evidence of this. However, the main goal of this paper is to introduce a new approach to the sign problem, that seems to offer much room for improvements. An appealing feature of this approach is its generality. It is illustrated first in the simple case of a scalar field theory with chemical potential, and then extended to the more challenging case of QCD at finite baryonic density.
These days, as high energy particle colliders become unavailable for testing speculative theoretical ideas, physicists are looking to other environments that may provide extreme conditions where theory confronts physical reality. One such circumstanc
e may arise at high temperature $T$, which perhaps can be attained in heavy ion collisions or in astrophysical settings. It is natural therefore to examine the high-temperature behavior of the standard model, and here I shall report on recent progress in constructing the high-$T$ limit of~QCD.
We investigate QCD at large mu/T by using Z_3-symmetric SU(3) gauge theory, where mu is the quark-number chemical potential and T is temperature. We impose the flavor-dependent twist boundary condition on quarks in QCD. This QCD-like theory has the t
wist angle theta as a parameter, and agrees with QCD when theta=0 and becomes symmetric when theta=2pi/3. For both QCD and the Z_3-symmetric SU(3) gauge theory, the phase diagram is drawn in mu--T plane with the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. In the Z_3-symmetric SU(3) gauge theory, the Polyakov loop varphi is zero in the confined phase appearing at T lsim 200 MeV. The perfectly confined phase never coexists with the color superconducting (CSC) phase, since finite diquark condensate in the CSC phase breaks Z_3 symmetry and then makes varphi finite. When mu gsim 300 MeV, the CSC phase is more stable than the perfectly confined phase at T lsim 100 MeV. Meanwhile, the chiral symmetry can be broken in the perfectly confined phase, since the chiral condensate is Z_3 invariant. Consequently, the perfectly confined phase is divided into the perfectly confined phase without chiral symmetry restoration in a region of mu lsim 300 MeV and T lsim 200 MeV and the perfectly confined phase with chiral symmetry restoration in a region of mu gsim 300 MeV and 100 lsim T lsim 200 MeV. The basic phase structure of Z_3-symmetric QCD-like theory remains in QCD. We show that in the perfectly confined phase the sign problem becomes less serious because of varphi=0, using the heavy quark theory. We discuss a lattice QCD framework to evaluate observables at theta=0 from those at theta=2pi/3.