Kertész Line and Embedded Monopoles in QCD

Abstract

We propose a new class of defects in QCD which can be viewed as embedded monopoles made of quark and gluon fields. These objects are explicitly gauge invariant and they closely resemble the Nambu monopoles in the standard electroweak model. We argue that the "embedded QCD monopoles" are proliferating in the quark-gluon plasma phase while in the low-temperature hadronic phase the spatial proliferation of these objects is suppressed. At realistic quark masses and zero chemical potential the hadronic and quark-gluon phases are generally believed to be connected by a smooth crossover across which all thermodynamic quantities are nonsingular. We argue that these QCD phases are separated by a well-defined boundary-known as the Kertész line in condensed matter systems-associated with the onset of the proliferation of the embedded QCD monopoles in the quark-gluon plasma phase.