Chiral Phase Transition Research Articles

The properties of axion with three different sets of parameters in two flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model

Abstract While the properties of axions have been studied primarily through high-energy physics and cosmology, there are some potential connections between the research results and the aerospace field. We study the properties of axions in hot and dense matter with three different sets of parameters in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model, including axion mass and self-coupling. We discussed axion mass and self-coupling, noting that axion properties are very sensitive to chiral phase transitions for three sets of parameters. The axion mass and self-coupling rapidly decrease in the chiral crossover region. The value of self-coupling becomes very sharp, appearing as a kinklike feature in the chiral phase transition.

Deconfinement and chiral phase transitions in quark matter with chiral imbalance

We study the thermodynamics of the Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model considering the effects of an effective chiral chemical potential. We offer a new parametrization of the Polyakov-loop potential depending on temperature and the chiral chemical potential which, when used together with a proper regularization scheme of vacuum contributions, predicts results consistent with those from lattice simulations. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Ladder top-quark condensation imprints in supercooled electroweak phase transition

The electroweak (EW) phase transition in the early Universe might be supercooled due to the presence of the classical scale invariance involving Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) sectors and the supercooling could persist down till a later epoch around which the QCD chiral phase transition is supposed to take place. Since this supercooling period keeps masslessness for all the six SM quarks, it has simply been argued that the QCD phase transition is the first order, and so is the EW one. However, not only the QCD coupling but also the top Yukawa and the Higgs quartic couplings get strong at around the QCD scale due to the renormalization group running, hence this scenario is potentially subject to a rigorous nonperturbative analysis. In this work, we employ the ladder Schwinger-Dyson (LSD) analysis based on the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis formalism at the two-loop level in such a gauge-Higgs-Yukawa system. We show that the chiral broken QCD vacuum emerges with the nonperturbative top condensate and the lightness of all six quarks is guaranteed due to the accidental U(1) axial symmetry presented in the top-Higgs sector. We employ a quark-meson model-like description in the mean field approximation to address the impact on the EW phase transition arising due to the top quark condensation at the QCD phase transition epoch. In the model, the LSD results are encoded to constrain the model parameter space. We then observe the cosmological phase transition of the first-order type and discuss the induced gravitational wave (GW) productions. We find that in addition to the conventional GW signals sourced from an expected BSM at around or over the TeV scale, the dynamical topponium-Higgs system can yield another power spectrum sensitive to the BBO, LISA, and DECIGO, etc.

The imprint of conservation laws on correlated particle production

The study of event-by-event fluctuations of net-baryon number in a subspace of full phase space is a promising direction for deciphering the structure of strongly interacting matter created in collisions of relativistic heavy nuclei. Such fluctuations are generally suppressed by exact baryon number conservation. Moreover, the suppression is stronger if baryon number is conserved locally. In this report we present a conceptually new approach to quantify correlations in rapidity space between baryon-antibaryon, baryon-baryon, and antibaryon-antibaryon pairs and demonstrate their impact on net-baryon number fluctuations. For the special case of Gaussian rapidity distributions, we use the Cholesky factorization of the covariance matrix, while the general case is introduced by exploiting the well-known Metropolis and Simulated Annealing methods. The approach is based on the use of the canonical ensemble of statistical mechanics for baryon number and can be applied to study correlations between baryons as well as strange and/or charm hadrons. It can also be applied to describe relativistic nuclear collisions leading to the production of multi-particle final states. One application of our method is the search for formation of proton clusters at low collision energies emerging as a harbinger of the anticipated first-order chiral phase transition. In a first step, the results obtained are compared to the recent measurements from the CERN ALICE collaboration. Such investigations are key to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter and baryon production mechanisms at energy scales from several GeV to several TeV.

The dense QCD equation of state within a modified NJL model

In this paper, we study the 2-flavor equation of state of the quantum chromodynamics at zero temperature and finite chemical potentials with a modified Nambu–Jona–Lasinio model, where the beta equilibrium and electric charge neutrality conditions of the system (including u, d quarks, electrons and muons) are considered. The related chiral phase transition is also discussed in this paper. For comparison, we show the results with four different parameter sets, and find only quantitative differences. As chemical potential increases, the crossover instead of first-order chiral phase transition happens. Finally, we calculate the binding energy per baryon for different parameter sets, and find that the 2-flavor quark system with a smaller [Formula: see text] (or a larger m) possesses the lower binding energy per baryon, indicated to be more stable than the other case.

Baryogenesis via QCD preheating with nonadiabatic baryon chemical potential

The chiral phase transition in QCD can be supercooled in the thermal history of the universe to be instantaneously out-of equilibrium, if QCD is coupled to a dark QCD sector exhibiting the dark chiral phase transition of the first order. In that case the QCD sigma meson field (as the chiral order parameter, or the light quark condensate) starts to roll in a nonadiabatic way down to the true QCD vacuum. Meanwhile a dynamic baryonic chemical potential can be generated solely within QCD, which is governed by the dynamic motion of the QCD sigma meson field, analogously to the spontaneous baryogenesis or the leptogenesis via the Higgs or axionlike relaxation scenario. When QCD is further allowed to communicate with a dark fermion with mass of order of 1 GeV and the baryon number violating coupling to neutron, the nonadiabatic QCD sigma motion along with the nonadiabatic baryon chemical potential can trigger the preheating and produce the baryon number asymmetry. We discuss this scenario in details to find that the QCD-induced dynamic baryon chemical potential plays a significant role for the QCD preheating and the baryogenesis, which yields the desired amount of the asymmetry today consistently with current astrophysical, cosmological, and terrestrial experimental constraints. Cosmological and phenomenological consequences characteristic to the present scenario are also addressed.

Effect of charm quark on chiral phase transition in Nf=2+1+1 holographic QCD

We investigate the effect of the charm quark on the chiral phase transition of light quarks at finite temperature based on the four-flavor soft-wall holographic QCD model. In the massless limit, we find that the thermal chiral phase transition is of the second order in the four-quark-flavor system. In the case with the massive charm quark and the massless light and strange quarks, the order of the phase transition changes to the first order. This is due to the quark-flavor symmetry breaking which is associated with the violation of the U(1) axial symmetry. Once the light and strange quarks get massive, the explicit chiral symmetry breaking becomes eminent, and then the crossover phase transition is realized at the physical quark masses. We also map the order of the phase transition on a phase diagram in the quark-mass plane where the light- and strange-quark masses are degenerate but differ from the value of the charm-quark mass. This phase diagram is an extension of the conventional Columbia plot to the four-quark-flavor system. The critical exponents related to the chiral phase transition are also addressed. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Conjectures about the Chiral Phase Transition in QCD from Anomalous Multi-Instanton Interactions.

To date numerical simulations of lattice QCD have not found a chiral phase transition of first order that is expected to occur for sufficiently light pions. We show how the restoration of an exact global chiral symmetry can strongly decrease the breaking of the approximate, anomalous U_{A}(1) symmetry. This is testable on the lattice through simulations for one through four flavors. In QCD a small breaking of the U_{A}(1) symmetry in the chirally symmetric phase generates novel experimental signals.

Curvature of the chiral phase transition line from the magnetic equation of state of ( 2+1 )-flavor QCD

We analyze the dependence of the chiral phase transition temperature on baryon number and strangeness chemical potentials by calculating the leading order curvature coefficients in the light and strange quark flavor basis as well as in the conserved charge (B, S) basis. Making use of scaling properties of the magnetic equation of state (MEoS) and including diagonal as well as off-diagonal contributions in the expansion of the energylike scaling variable that enters the parametrization of the MEoS, allows to explore the variation of Tc(μB,μS)=Tc(1−(κ2Bμ^B2+κ2Sμ^S2+2κ11BSμ^Bμ^S)) along different lines in the (μB,μS) plane. On lattices with fixed cutoff in units of temperature, aT=1/8, we find κ2B=0.015(1), κ2S=0.0124(5) and κ11BS=−0.0050(7). We show that the chemical potential dependence along the line of vanishing strangeness chemical potential is about 10% larger than along the strangeness neutral line. The latter differs only by about 3% from the curvature on a line of vanishing strange quark chemical potential, μs=0. We also show that close to the chiral limit the strange quark mass contributes like an energylike variable in scaling relations for pseudocritical temperatures. The chiral phase transition temperature decreases with decreasing strange quark mass, Tc(ms)=Tc(msphy)(1−0.097(2)(ms−msphys)/msphy+O((Δms)2). Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Chiral phase transition and spin alignment of vector mesons in the polarized-Polyakov-loop Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model under rotation

By using the analytic continuation method, a polarized Polykov-loop potential at finite real angular velocity is constructed from the lattice results at finite imaginary angular velocity. The chiral and deconfinement phase transitions under rotation have been simultaneously investigated in the polarized-Polyakov-loop Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (PPNJL) model. It is observed that both critical temperatures of deconfinement and chiral phase transition increase with the angular velocity, which is in consistent with lattice results. The spin alignment of vector meson has the negative deviation of ρ00−1/3 under rotation, and the deviation in the PPNJL model is much more significant than that in the NJL model and the quark coalescence model, which revealing the important role of rotating gluons on the quark polarization. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

A domain wall and chiral edge currents in holographic chiral phase transitions

We investigate spatially inhomogeneous solutions in a top-down holographic model: the D3/D7 model which provides a holographic description of the chiral phase transition for a finite external magnetic field, chemical potential, and temperature. We numerically find a domain wall (or kink) solution in the three dimensional space, which incorporates between the chiral symmetry broken phase at the spatial infinity, under the homogeneous sources. Along with the inhomogeneity of the chiral condensate, the charge density is also spatially modulated. The modulated charge density and finite magnetic field lead to the chiral edge current close to the domain wall. We explore the dependences of those profiles on the chemical potential and temperature near the first and second order phase transition points. Our results indicate that the inhomogeneous solutions we found are in good agreement with those obtained by the Ginzburg-Landau theory in the vicinity of the transition points.

Effects of tensor spin polarization on the chiral restoration and deconfinement phase transitions

Effects of tensor spin polarization (TSP) on the chiral restoration and deconfinement phase transitions are studied in Polyakov loop extended Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. For chiral phase transition, the higher the polarized degree of quark-antiquark pairs under the strong magnetic field, the higher the phase transition temperature. The TSP corrects the position of the critical end point. The small impact of TSP on the phase transition temperature is found for the deconfinement phase transition. On the other hand, we divide the phase space into three ranges based on the phase diagram obtained from the PNJL model: the confinement phase with chiral symmetry broken, the deconfinement phase with restored chiral symmetry, and the confinement phase with restored chiral symmetry (quarkyonic phase). It is found that TSP has only a very small effect on the anisotropic pressure in the deconfined phase with chiral symmetry restored and the quarkyonic phase, but it has a very strong effect on the anisotropic pressure in the confined phase with chiral symmetry broken. This is because TSP is closely related to chiral symmetry. The restoration of chiral symmetry means the dissociation of spin polarization condensate. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Chiral symmetry restoration at finite temperature in a model with manifest confinement

Multiple lattice evidences support the existence of a confining but chirally symmetric regime of QCD above the chiral symmetry restoration crossover at Tch≃155 MeV. This regime is characterised by an approximate chiral spin symmetry of the partition function, which is a symmetry of the colour charge and the confining electric part of the QCD Lagrangian. It is traditionally believed that confinement should automatically induce spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry, which would preclude the existence of a confining but chirally symmetric regime of QCD at high temperatures. We employ a well-known solvable quark model for QCD in 3+1 dimensions that is chirally symmetric and manifestly confining and argue that while confinement indeed induces dynamical breaking of chiral symmetry at T=0, a chiral restoration phase transition takes place at some critical temperature Tch. Above this temperature, the spectrum of the model consists of chirally symmetric hadrons with approximate chiral spin symmetry.

Speed of sound and polytropic index in the Polyakov-loop Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model

We investigate the speed of sound and polytropic index of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) matter in the full phase diagram based on a three-flavor Polyakov-looped Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. The speed of sound and polytropic index in isothermal and adiabatic cases all have a dip structure at the low chemical potential side of the chiral phase transition boundary, and these quantities reach their global minimum values at the critical end point (CEP) but are not completely zero, where the values in adiabatic are lightly greater than those in isothermal. Different from the speed of sound, the polytropic index rapidly form a peak after crossing the chiral phase transition boundary, which is observed for the first time. Along the hypothetical chemical freeze-out lines, the speed of sound rapidly decreases near the CEP, followed by a small spinodal behavior, while the polytropic index, especially in isothermal, exhibits a more pronounced and nearly close to zero dip structure as it approaches the CEP. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

QCD Anderson transition with overlap valence quarks on a twisted-mass sea

In this work we probe the QCD Anderson transition by studying spectral distributions of the massless overlap operator on gauge configurations created by the (tmfT) with 2+1+1 flavors of dynamical quarks and the Iwasaki gauge action. We assess finite-size and discretization effects by considering two different lattice spacings and several physical volumes, and mimic the approach to the continuum limit through stereographic projection. Fitting the inflection points of the participation ratios of the overlap Dirac eigenmodes, we obtain estimates of the temperature dependence of the mobility edge, below which quark modes are localized. We observe that it is well described by a quadratic polynomial and systematically vanishes at temperatures below the pseudocritical one of the chiral transition. In fact, our best estimates within errors overlap with that of the chiral phase transition temperature of QCD in the chiral limit. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Asymptotic behavior of the Fourier coefficients and the analytic structure of the QCD equation of state

In this paper we study the universal properties of the baryon chemical potential Fourier coefficients in quantum chromodynamics. We show that by following a well-defined strategy, the Fourier coefficients can be used to locate Yang-Lee edge singularities associated with chiral phase transition (and by extension with the Roberge-Weiss) in the complex chemical potential plane. We comment on the viability of performing this analysis using lattice QCD data. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Neutral pion masses within a hot and magnetized medium in a lattice-improved soft-wall AdS/QCD model

We investigate chiral phase transitions and the screening masses, pole masses, and thermal widths of neutral pion mesons with finite temperature T and magnetic field B in a lattice-improved AdS/QCD model, which is constructed by fitting the lattice results of the pseudocritical temperatures Tpc(B). Specifically, we find that the chiral condensate σ undergoes a crossover phase transition demonstrating distinct magnetic catalysis and inverse magnetic catalysis effects in very low- and high-temperature regions with fixed finite B, respectively. For the screening masses, we find that the longitudinal component decreases with B at very low and high temperatures and increases with B near Tpc. The transverse component always increases with B at fixed T. However, both the longitudinal and transverse screening masses increase with T at fixed B. Furthermore, we find that the pole mass decreases with the increase of B or T. It is interesting to note that the thermal width shows similar behavior to the longitudinal screening masses in the very-high-temperature region. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Free‐Standing Bacterial Cellulose‐Templated Radiative Cooling Liquid Crystal Films with Self‐Adaptive Solar Transmittance Modulation

AbstractPassive radiative cooling materials can efficiently reflect solar radiation and spontaneously dissipate heat through the long‐wave infrared (LWIR) transmission window to the coldouter space. They are highly attractive for application in walls and roofs of sustainable energy‐efficient buildings, but it is a challenging task to develop switchable radiative coolers for transparent windows. Herein, free‐standing bacterial cellulose‐templated radiative cooling liquid crystal films with high LWIR emissivity and self‐adaptive solar transmittance are reported. Biosynthetic silanized bacterial cellulose with 3D interconnected porous nanostructure is harnessed as a robust template for confining novel liquid crystals with smectic A to chiral nematic phase transition, thereby endowing the film with high solar transmittance modulation ability. The resulting film is found to not only exhibit a remarkable LWIR emissivity, but also adaptively change its solar transmittance between a transparent state and an opaque state according to environmental temperature variation. Outdoor radiative cooling experiments are performed, and the energy‐saving performance is evaluated through a simulation of a 12‐story reference office building with the films applied as radiative cooling windows. This research can shine light on the development of advanced radiative cooling materials with switchable transmittance and their widespread applications in buildings, vehicles, and transparent photovoltaics.

Mass splitting and spin alignment for ϕ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\phi $$\\end{document} mesons in a magnetic field in NJL model

Based on the Nambu–Jona–Lasinio (NJL) model, we develop a framework for calculating the spin alignment of vector mesons and applied it to study ϕ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\phi $$\\end{document} mesons in a magnetic field. We calculate mass spectra for ϕ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\phi $$\\end{document} mesons and observe mass splitting between the longitudinally polarized state and transversely polarized states. The ϕ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\phi $$\\end{document} meson in a thermal equilibrium system is preferred to occupy the state with spin λ=0\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\lambda =0$$\\end{document} than those with spin λ=±1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\lambda =\\pm 1$$\\end{document}, because the former state has a smaller energy. As a consequence, we conclude that the spin alignment will be larger than 1/3 if one measures along the direction of the magnetic field, which is qualitatively consistent with the recent STAR data. Around the critical temperature TC=150MeV\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T_{C}=150~\\hbox {MeV}$$\\end{document}, the positive deviation from 1/3 is proportional to the square of the magnetic field strength, which agrees with the result from the non-relativistic coalescence model. Including the anomalous magnetic moments for quarks will modify the dynamical masses of quarks and thus affect the mass spectra and spin alignment of ϕ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\phi $$\\end{document} mesons. The discussion of spin alignment in the NJL model may help us better understand the formation of hadron’s spin structure during the chiral phase transition.

New Aspect of Chiral SU(2) and U(1) Axial Breaking in QCD

The violation of the U(1) axial symmetry in QCD is stricter than the chiral SU(2) breaking simply because of the presence of the quantum axial anomaly. If the QCD gauge coupling is sent to zero (the asymptotic free limit, where the U(1) axial anomaly does not exist), the strength of the U(1) axial breaking coincides with that of the chiral SU(2) breaking, which we, in short, call an axial–chiral coincidence. This coincidence is trivial since QCD then becomes a non-interacting theory. Actually, there exists another limit in the QCD parameter space, where an axial–chiral coincidence occurs even with nonzero QCD gauge coupling, which can be dubbed a nontrivial coincidence: it is the case with the massive light quarks (ml≠0) and the massless strange quark (ms=0) due to the flavor-singlet nature of the topological susceptibility. This coincidence is robust and tied to the anomalous chiral Ward–Takahashi identity, which is operative even at hot QCD. This implies that the chiral SU(2) symmetry is restored simultaneously with the U(1) axial symmetry at high temperatures. This simultaneous restoration is independent of ml(≠0) and, hence, is irrespective of the order of the chiral phase transition. In this paper, we discuss how the real-life QCD can be evolved from the nontrivial chiral–axial coincidence limit by working on a Nambu–Jona–Lasinio model with the U(1) axial anomaly contribution properly incorporated. It is shown that, at high temperatures, the large differences between the restorations of the chiral SU(2) symmetry and the U(1) axial symmetry for two light quarks and a sufficiently large current mass for the strange quark are induced by a significant interference of the topological susceptibility. Thus, the deviation from the nontrivial coincidence, which is monitored by the strange quark mass controlling the topological susceptibility, provides a new way of understanding the chiral SU(2) and U(1) axial breaking in QCD.