Search Results (6)

Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking (D$\chi$SB) in quantum chromo dynamics (QCD) for light quarks is an indispensable concept for understanding hadron physics, i.e., the spectrum and the structure of hadrons. In functional approaches to QCD, the respective role of the quark propagator has been evident since the seminal work of Nambu and Jona-Lasinio has been recast in terms of QCD. It not only highlights one of the most important aspects of D$\chi$SB, the dynamical generation of constituent quark masses, but also makes plausible that D$\chi$SB is a robustly occurring phenomenon in QCD. The latter impression, however, changes when higher n-point functions are taken into account. In particular, the quark–gluon vertex, i.e., the most elementary n-point function describing the full, non-perturbative quark–gluon interaction, plays a dichotomous role: It is subject to D$\chi$SB as signalled by its scalar and tensor components but it is also a driver of D$\chi$SB due to the infrared enhancement of most of its components. Herein, the relevant self-consistent mechanism is elucidated. It is pointed out that recently obtained results imply that, at least in the covariant gauge, D$\chi$SB in QCD is located close to the critical point and is thus a delicate effect. In addition, requiring a precise determination of QCD’s three-point functions, D$\chi$SB is established, in particular in view of earlier studies, by an intricate interplay of the self-consistently determined magnitude and momentum dependence of various tensorial components of the gluon–gluon and the quark–gluon interactions. Full article

This paper presents our study of the presence of the unstable critical point in spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in the framework of Ginzburg–Landau (G-L) free energy. Through a 3D Ising spin lattice simulation, we found a zone of hysteresis where the unstable critical point continued to exist, despite the system having entered the broken symmetry phase. Within the hysteresis zone, the presence of the kink–antikink SSB solitons expands and, therefore, these can be observed. In scalar field theories, such as Higgs fields, the mass of this soliton inside the hysteresis zone could behave as a tachyon mass, namely as an imaginary quantity. Due to the fact that groups Ζ(2) and SU(2) belong to the same universality class, one expects that, in future experiments of ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions, in addition to the expected bosons condensations, structures of tachyon fields could appear. Full article

Although the Asymptotic Safety scenario is one of the most promising approaches to quantum gravity, little attention has been devoted to the issue of the vacuum state. Higher derivative operators often appear on the ultraviolet critical surface around the non-Gaussian fixed point generating additional degrees of freedom which can render the standard vacuum unstable. When this happens, translation and rotational symmetries can be spontaneously broken and a new set of symmetries can show up at the level of the effective action. In this work, it will be argued that a “kinetic condensate” characterizes the vacuum state of asymptotically safe quadratic gravity theories. If this scenario is realized in the full theory, the vacuum state of gravity is the gravitational analogous to the Savvidy vacuum in Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD). Full article

One of the main goals of the cold baryonic matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR is to explore the phases of strongly interacting matter at finite temperature and baryon chemical potential ${\mu }_B$ . The equation of state of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) at ${\mu }_B>0$ is an essential input for the CBM experiment, as well as for the beam energy scan in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider(RHIC) experiment. Unfortunately, it is highly nontrivial to calculate the equation of state directly from QCD: numerical Monte Carlo studies on lattice are not useful at finite ${\mu }_B$ . Using the method of Taylor expansion in chemical potential, we estimate the equation of state, namely the baryon number density and its contribution to the pressure, for two-flavor QCD at moderate ${\mu }_B$ . We also study the quark number susceptibilities. We examine the technicalities associated with summing the Taylor series, and explore a Pade resummation. An examination of the Taylor series can be used to get an estimate of the location of the critical point in ${\mu }_B,T$ plane. Full article

We give an elementary and pedagogical review of the phase diagrams which are possible in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Herein, emphasis is upon the appearance of a critical endpoint, where disordered and ordered phases meet. In many models, though, a Lifshitz point also arises. At a Lifshitz point, three phases meet: disordered, ordered, and one in which spatially inhomogeneous phases arise. At the level of mean field theory, the appearance of a Lifshitz point does not dramatically affect the phase diagram. We argue, however, that fluctuations about the Lifshitz point are very strong in the infrared and significantly alter the phase diagram. We discuss at length the analogy to inhomogeneous polymers, where the Lifshitz regime produces a bicontinuous microemulsion. We briefly mention the possible relevance to the phase diagram of QCD. Full article

In this review, we present an up-to-date phenomenological summary of research developments in the physics of the Quark–Gluon Plasma (QGP). A short historical perspective and theoretical motivation for this rapidly developing field of contemporary particle physics is provided. In addition, we introduce and discuss the role of the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) ground state, non-perturbative and lattice QCD results on the QGP properties, as well as the transport models used to make a connection between theory and experiment. The experimental part presents the selected results on bulk observables, hard and penetrating probes obtained in the ultra-relativistic heavy-ion experiments carried out at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (BNL RHIC) and CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerators. We also give a brief overview of new developments related to the ongoing searches of the QCD critical point and to the collectivity in small (p + p and p + A) systems. Full article