QCD with chemical potential in a small hyperspherical box

Abstract

To leading order in perturbation theory, we solve QCD, defined on a small three sphere in the large N and N f limit, at finite chemical potential and map out the phase diagram in the (μ, T) plane. The action of QCD is complex in the presence of a non-zero quark chemical potential which results in the sign problem for lattice simulations. In the large N theory, which at low temperatures becomes a conventional unitary matrix model with a complex action, we find that the dominant contribution to the functional integral comes from complexified gauge field configurations. For this reason the eigenvalues of the Polyakov line lie off the unit circle on a contour in the complex plane. We find at low temperatures that as μ passes one of the quark energy levels there is a third-order Gross-Witten transition from a confined to a deconfined phase and back again giving rise to a rich phase structure. We compare a range of physical observables in the large N theory to those calculated numerically in the theory with N = 3. In the latter case there are no genuine phase transitions in a finite volume but nevertheless the observables are remarkably similar to the large N theory.