Dimension changing phase transitions in instanton crystals

Abstract

We investigate lattices of instantons and the dimension-changing transitions between them. Our ultimate goal is the 3D->4D transition, which is holographically dual to the phase transition between the baryonic and the quarkyonic phases of cold nuclear matter. However, in this paper (just as in [1]) we focus on lower dimensions -- the 1D lattice of instantons in a harmonic potential V M_2^2x_2^2+M_3^2x_2^2+M_4^2x_4^2 and the zigzag-shaped lattice as a first stage of the 1D->2D transition. We prove that in the low- and moderate-density regimes, interactions between the instantons are dominated by two-body forces. This drastically simplifies finding the ground state of the instantons' orientations, so we made a numeric scan of the whole orientation space instead of assuming any particular ansatz. We find that depending on the M_2/M_3/M_4 ratios, the ground state of instanton orientations can follow a wide variety of patterns. For the straight 1D lattices, we found orientations periodically running over elements of a Z_2, Klein, prismatic, or dihedral subgroup of the SU(2)/Z_2, as well as irrational but link-periodic patterns. For the zigzag-shaped lattices, we detected 4 distinct orientation phases -- the anti-ferromagnet, another abelian phase, and two non-abelian phases. Allowing the zigzag amplitude to vary as a function of increasing compression force, we obtained the phase diagram for the straight and zigzag-shaped lattices in the (force, M_3/M_4), (chemical potential, M_3/M_4), and (density, M_3/M_4) planes. Some of the transitions between these phases are second-order while others are first-order. Our techniques can be applied to other types of non-abelian crystals.