Search Results (34)

We present a study of hybrid neutron stars with color superconducting quark matter cores at a finite temperature that results in sequences of stars with constant entropy per baryon, $s/n_B=\mathrm{const}$. For the quark matter equation of state, we employ a recently developed nonlocal chiral quark model, while nuclear matter is described with a relativistic density functional model of the DD2 class. The phase transition is obtained through a Maxwell construction under isothermal conditions. We find that traversing the mixed phase on a trajectory at low $s/n_B\lesssim 2$ in the phase diagram shows a heating effect, while at larger $s/n_B$ the temperature drops. This behavior may be attributed to the presence of a color superconducting quark matter phase at low temperatures and the melting of the diquark condensate which restores the normal quark matter phase at higher temperatures. While the isentropic hybrid star branch at low $s/n_B\lesssim 2$ is connected to the neutron star branch, it becomes disconnected at higher entropy per baryon so that the “thermal twin” phenomenon is observed. We find that the transition from connected to disconnected hybrid star sequences may be estimated with the Seidov criterion for the difference in energy densities. The radii and masses at the onset of deconfinement exhibit a linear relationship and thus define a critical compactness of the isentropic star configuration for which the transition occurs and which, for large enough $s/n_B\gtrsim 2$ values, is accompanied by instability. The results of this study may be of relevance for uncovering the conditions for the supernova explodability of massive blue supergiant stars using the quark deconfinement mechanism. The accretion-induced deconfinement transition with thermal twin formation may contribute to explaining the origin of eccentric orbits in some binary systems and the origin of isolated millisecond pulsars. Full article

The holographic Einstein–Maxwell-dilaton model is employed to map state-of-the-art lattice QCD thermodynamics data from the temperature (T) axis towards the baryon–chemical potential (${\mu }_B$) axis and aims to gain a warm equation of state (EoS) of deconfined QCD matter which can be supplemented with a cool and confined part suitable for subsequent compact (neutron) star (merger) investigations. The model exhibits a critical end point (CEP) at $T_{\mathrm{CEP}}=\mathcal{O}\left(100\right)$ MeV and ${\mu }_{B\mathrm{CEP}}=500\dots 700$ MeV with an emerging first-order phase transition (FOPT) curve which extends to large values of ${\mu }_B$ without approaching the ${\mu }_B$ axis. We consider the impact and peculiarities of the related phase structure on the EoS for the employed dilaton potential and dynamical coupling parameterizations. These seem to prevent the design of an overall trustable EoS without recourse to hybrid constructions. Full article

In the framework of the Polyakov quark-meson model with two flavors, the bubble dynamics of a first-order phase transition in the region of high density and low temperature are investigated by using the homogeneous thermal nucleation theory. In mean-field approximation, after obtaining the effective potential with the inclusion of the fermionic vacuum term, we build a geometric method to search two existing minima, which can be actually connected by a bounce interpolated between a local minimum to an adjacent global one. For both weak and strong first-order hadron quark phase transitions, as fixing the chemical potentials at $\mu =306\mathrm{MeV}$ and $\mu =310\mathrm{MeV}$, the bubble profiles, the surface tension, the typical radius of the bounce, and the saddle-point action as a function of temperature are numerically calculated in the presence of a nucleation bubble. It is found that the surface tension remains at a very small value even when the density is high. It is also noticed that the deconfinement phase transition does not change the chiral phase transition dramatically for light quarks and phase boundaries for hadron and quark matter should be resized properly according to the saddle-point action evaluated on the bounce solution. Full article

Inspired by the fact that both the dilaton potential encoding the trace anomalies of QCD and the Polyakov loop potential measuring the deconfinement phase transition can be expressed in the logarithmic forms, as well as the fact that the scale symmetry is expected to be restoring and colors are deconfined in extreme conditions such as high temperatures and/or densities, we conjecture a relation between the dilaton potential and the Polyakov loop potential. Explicitly, we start from the Coleman–Weinberg type potential of a real scalar field—a dilaton or conformal compensator—and make an ansatz of the relation between this scalar field and the Polyakov loop to obtain the Polyakov loop potential, which can be parameterized in Lattice QCD (LQCD) in the pure glue sector. We find that the coefficients of Polyakov potential fitted from Lattice data are automatically satisfied in this ansatz, the locations of deconfinement and scale restoration are locked to each other, and the first-order phase transition can be realized. Extensions to the low-energy effective quark models are also discussed. The conjectured relation may deepen our understanding of the evolution of the universe, the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking, the phase diagram of QCD matter, and the properties of neutron stars. Full article

In this paper, we study the gravitational waves of holographic QCD phase transition with hyperscaling violation. We consider an Einstein–Maxwell Dilaton background and discuss the confinement–deconfinement phase transition between thermally charged AdS and AdS black holes. We find that hyperscaling violation reduces the phase transition temperature. In a further study, we discuss the effect of hyperscaling violation on the GW spectrum. We found that the hyperscaling violation exponent suppresses the peak frequency of the total GW spectrum. Moreover, the results of the GW spectrum may be detected by IPTA, SKA, BBO, and NANOGrav. We also find that the hyperscaling violation exponent suppresses the peak frequency of the bubble-collision spectrum $h^2{\Omega }_{env}$. Hyperscaling violation enhances the energy densities of the sound wave spectrum $h^2{\Omega }_{sw}$ and the MHD turbulence spectrum $h^2{\Omega }_{turb}$. The total GW spectrum is dominated by the contribution of the bubble collision in runaway bubbles case. Full article

The condensed matter Bose system may contain effective monopole quasiparticles in its excitation spectrum. In this paper, we first accomplish the mapping of the two-band Ginzburg–Landau theory to the extended CP¹ model, and then perform the Monte Carlo simulations on the $50\times 50\times 50$ cubic lattice with periodic boundary conditions. With the numerical data of monopole density and magnetic susceptibility, we indicate that there exists a monopole–antimonopole deconfinement transition for the two-band superconducting system with the critical temperature above 70 K. We also suggest the possible detection of this new monopole plasma phase in high-$T_c$ iron-based superconductors. Full article

This review is devoted to the modern understanding of the two-color QCD phase diagram at finite baryon density and low temperatures. First, we consider the theoretical picture of this phase diagram. It is believed that at low baryon density, two-color QCD can be described by chiral perturbation theory (ChPT), which predicts a second-order phase transition with Bose-Einstein condensation of diquarks at $\mu =m_{\pi }/2$. At larger baryon chemical potentials, the interactions between baryons become important, and ChPT is not applicable anymore. At sufficiently large baryon chemical potential, the Fermi sphere composed of quarks is formed, and diquarks are condensed on the surface of this sphere. In this region, two-color baryon matter reveals properties similar to those of the Quarkyonic phase. Particular attention in this review is paid to lattice studies of dense two-color QCD phase diagram. In the low-density region, the results of lattice studies are in agreement with ChPT predictions. At sufficiently large baryon densities, lattice studies observe a Fermi sphere composed of quarks and condensation of diquarks on its surface. Thus, available lattice studies support most of the theoretical predictions. Finally, we discuss the status of the deconfinement in cold dense two-color matter, which was observed in lattice simulation with staggered fermions. Full article

The photon production by conversion of gluons $gg\to \gamma$ via quark loop in the framework of the mean-field approach to the QCD (quantunm chromodynamics) vacuum is studied here. According to the domain model of QCD vacuum, the confinement phase is dominated by Abelian (anti-)self-dual gluon fields, while the deconfinement phase is characterized by a strong chromomagnetic field. In the confinement phase, photon production is impossible due to the random spacial orientation of the statistical ensemble of vacuum fields. However, the conditions of Furry theorem are not satisfied in the deconfinement phase, the conversion of gluons is nonzero and, in addition, photon distribution has a strong angular anisotropy. Thus, the photon production in the discussed process acts as one of the important features of transition in quark-gluon plasma to the deconfinement phase. Full article

In this study, we discuss how iterative solutions of QCD-inspired gap-equations at the finite chemical potential demonstrate domains of chaotic behavior as well as non-chaotic domains, which represent one or the other of the only two—usually distinct—positive mass gap solutions with broken or restored chiral symmetry, respectively. In the iterative approach, gap solutions exist which exhibit restored chiral symmetry beyond a certain dynamical cut-off energy. A chirally broken, non-chaotic domain with no emergent mass poles and hence with no quasi-particle excitations exists below this energy cut-off. The transition domain between these two energy-separated domains is chaotic. As a result, the dispersion relation is that of quarks with restored chiral symmetry, cut at a dynamical energy scale, and determined by fractal structures. We argue that the chaotic origin of the infrared cut-off could hint at a chaotic nature of confinement and the deconfinement phase transition. Full article

The interplay of chiral dynamics and gluodynamics plays an essential role in the nonperturbative QCD region, and the chiral phase transition and deconfinement phase transition are the main topics of QCD phase transitions under extreme conditions, e.g., finite temperature and/or baryon density, strong magnetic fields, and fast rotation. We briefly introduce our own recent progress from the theoretical side on QCD phase transitions and phase diagrams under extreme conditions related to the early universe, compact stars, and heavy-ion collisions. Full article

This work deals with the deconfinement phase transition from a hadronic gas (HG) phase consisting of massive pions, to a quark–gluon plasma (QGP) phase consisting of gluons, massless up and down quarks and massive strange quarks, in addition to their antiquarks. Based on the Bag and coexistence models, we study the variations of pressure characterizing both HG and QGP phases. For the latter, we calculate the partition function of the color-singlet QGP within the projection method using a density of states containing the volume term only. We investigate the phase diagram of the strongly interacting matter, in the µ–T plane, in several cases: in the HG phase, we consider massless pions then we account for their masses, and in the QGP phase, first we take it consisting of two massless u and d quarks, then we consider additional massive strange quarks. Full article

The temperature dependence of the QCD string-breaking distance is evaluated in terms of the string tension and the rate of production of light mesons in the chromo-electric field of a flux tube. As a function of the meson mass, the mentioned rate can be falling off either as a Gaussian, as suggested by the Schwinger formula, or as an exponential, which is the case in the London limit of the dual superconductor. We find an excellent agreement of the so-evaluated temperature dependence of the string-breaking distance with the respective lattice data, for the case of the meson-production rate corresponding to the London limit. Full article

Recently, persistent homology analysis has been used to investigate phase structure. In this study, we apply persistent homology analysis to the QCD effective model with heavy quarks at finite imaginary chemical potential; i.e., the Potts model with the suitably tuned external field. Since we try to obtain a deeper understanding of the relationship between persistent homology and phase transition in QCD, we consider the imaginary chemical potential because the clear phase transition, which is closely related to the confinement-deconfinement transition, exists. In the actual analysis, we employ the point-cloud approach to consider persistent homology. In addition, we investigate the fluctuation of persistent diagrams to obtain additional information on the relationship between the spatial topology and the phase transition. Full article

The midrapidity transverse momentum distributions of the charged pions, kaons, protons, and antiprotons, measured by ALICE Collaboration at ten centrality classes of Pb + Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{nn}}$ = 5.02 TeV in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC, CERN, Switzerland), are successfully analyzed using combined minimum χ² fits with a thermodynamically non-consistent, as well as thermodynamically consistent, Tsallis function with transverse flow. The extracted non-extensivity parameter q decreases systematically for all considered particle species with increasing Pb + Pb collision centrality, suggesting an increase in the degree of system thermalization with an increase in collision centrality. The results for q suggest quite a large degree of thermalization of quark–gluon plasma (QGP) created in central Pb + Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{nn} }$= 5.02 TeV with the average number of participant nucleons $⟨N_{part}⟩$ > 160. The obtained significantly different growth rates of transverse flow velocity, $⟨{\beta }_T⟩$, in regions $⟨N_{part}⟩$ < 71 ± 7 and $⟨N_{part}⟩$ > 71 ± 7 with the temperature parameter T₀ remaining constant within uncertainties in region $⟨N_{part}⟩$ > 71 ± 7 probably indicates that $⟨N_{part}⟩$ ≈ 71 ± 7 (corresponding to $⟨d{N}_{ch}/d\eta ⟩$ ≈ 251 ± 20) is a threshold border value for a crossover transition from a dense hadronic state to the QGP phase (or mixed phase of QGP and hadrons) in Pb + Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{nn}}$ = 5.02 TeV. The threshold border value for transverse flow velocity $⟨{\beta }_T⟩$ ≈ 0.46 ± 0.03 (corresponding to $⟨N_{part}⟩$ ≈ 71 ± 7), estimated by us in Pb + Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{nn}}$ = 5.02 TeV, agrees well with the corresponding border value $⟨{\beta }_T⟩$ ≈ 0.44 ± 0.02, recently obtained in Xe + Xe collisions at $\sqrt{s_{nn} }$= 5.44 TeV, and with almost constant $⟨{\beta }_T⟩$ values extracted earlier in the Beam Energy Scan (BES) program of the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC, Brookhaven, GA, USA) in central Au + Au collisions in the $\sqrt{s_{nn} }$= 7.7 − 39 GeV energy range, where the threshold for QGP production is achieved. The correlations between extracted T₀ and $⟨{\beta }_T⟩$ parameters are found to be greatly different in regions $⟨{\beta }_T⟩$ < 0.46 and $⟨{\beta }_T⟩$ > 0.46, which further supports our result obtained for the threshold border value in Pb + Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{nn}}$= 5.02 TeV. Full article

A quark-nova is a hypothetical stellar evolution branch where a neutron star converts explosively into a quark star. Here, we discuss the intimate coupling between the micro-physics and macro-physics of the quark-nova and provide a prescription for how to couple the Burn-UD code to the stellar evolution code in order to simulate neutron-star-to-quark-star burning at stellar scales and estimate the resulting energy release and ejecta. Once formed, the thermal evolution of the proto-quark star follows. We found much higher peak neutrino luminosities (>10${}^{55}$ erg/s) and a higher energy neutrino (i.e., harder) spectrum than previous stellar evolution studies of proto-neutron stars. We derived the neutrino counts that observatories such as Super-Kamiokande-III and Halo-II should expect and suggest how these can differentiate between a supernova and a quark-nova. Due to the high peak neutrino luminosities, neutrino pair annihilation can deposit as much as ${10}^{52}$ ergs in kinetic energy in the matter overlaying the neutrinosphere, yielding relativistic quark-nova ejecta. We show how the quark-nova could help us understand many still enigmatic high-energy astrophysical transients, such as super-luminous supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts. Full article