QCD phase transitions in the light quark chiral limit

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bernhardt, Julian, Fischer, Christian S.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Bernhardt, Julian
Fischer, Christian S.
author_facet Bernhardt, Julian
Fischer, Christian S.
contents We investigate the order of the QCD chiral transition in the limit of vanishing bare up/down quark masses and variations of the bare strange-quark mass $0 \le m_{\mathrm{s}} \le \infty$. In this limit and due to universality long range correlations with the quantum numbers of pseudoscalar and scalar mesons may dominate the physics. In order to study the interplay between the microscopic quark and gluon degrees of freedom and the long range correlations we extend a combination of lattice Yang--Mills theory and a (truncated) version of Dyson--Schwinger equations by also taking back-reactions of mesonic degrees of freedom into account. Both this system and the meson backcoupling approach have been studied extensively in the past but this is the first work in a full $(2 + 1)$-flavor setup. Starting from the physical point, we determine the chiral susceptibilities for decreasing up/down quark masses and find good agreement with both lattice and functional renormalization group results. We then proceed to determine the order of the chiral transition along the left-hand side of the Columbia plot, for chemical potentials in the range $-(30 \,\textrm{MeV})^2 \le μ_q^2 \le (30 \,\textrm{MeV})^2$. We find a second-order phase transition throughout and no trace of a first-order region in the $N_{f} = 3$ corner of the Columbia plot. This result remains unchanged when an additional Goldstone boson due to a restored axial $\mathrm{U_A}(1)$ is taken into account.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_06737
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle QCD phase transitions in the light quark chiral limit
Bernhardt, Julian
Fischer, Christian S.
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Lattice
We investigate the order of the QCD chiral transition in the limit of vanishing bare up/down quark masses and variations of the bare strange-quark mass $0 \le m_{\mathrm{s}} \le \infty$. In this limit and due to universality long range correlations with the quantum numbers of pseudoscalar and scalar mesons may dominate the physics. In order to study the interplay between the microscopic quark and gluon degrees of freedom and the long range correlations we extend a combination of lattice Yang--Mills theory and a (truncated) version of Dyson--Schwinger equations by also taking back-reactions of mesonic degrees of freedom into account. Both this system and the meson backcoupling approach have been studied extensively in the past but this is the first work in a full $(2 + 1)$-flavor setup. Starting from the physical point, we determine the chiral susceptibilities for decreasing up/down quark masses and find good agreement with both lattice and functional renormalization group results. We then proceed to determine the order of the chiral transition along the left-hand side of the Columbia plot, for chemical potentials in the range $-(30 \,\textrm{MeV})^2 \le μ_q^2 \le (30 \,\textrm{MeV})^2$. We find a second-order phase transition throughout and no trace of a first-order region in the $N_{f} = 3$ corner of the Columbia plot. This result remains unchanged when an additional Goldstone boson due to a restored axial $\mathrm{U_A}(1)$ is taken into account.
title QCD phase transitions in the light quark chiral limit
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Lattice
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.06737