Chiral Symmetry Breaking Research Articles

Two pseudo-Goldstone bosons in the Gildener–Weinberg model

In a dimensionless multi-scalar extension of the Standard Model, Gildener and Weinberg assumed that along a flat direction, there is only one classically massless scalar, known as the scalon, which acquires mass through radiative corrections à la Coleman–Weinberg, while all other scalars remain heavy. In this paper, by introducing a toy model with four scalar degrees of freedom we demonstrate the existence of two scalons along a specific flat direction that we construct. We present the effective potential for the model and provide the masses of the heavy scalars and two radiatively light pseudo-Goldstone bosons.

Phase transition and gravitational waves in maximally symmetric composite Higgs model

In this paper we study phase transitions in a maximally symmetric composite Higgs model with next-to-minimal coset, where a pseudoscalar singlet emerges alongside the Higgs doublet. The maximal symmetry guarantees the finiteness of the radiatively generated scalar potential. We explore the scenario involving an explicit source of CP violation in the strong sector, which induces a ℤ2 asymmetric scalar potential, and consequently leads to nonzero vacuum expectation value for the singlet. Current experimental bounds from the LHC are imposed on the masses of the composite resonances, while the CP violating interactions of the pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons are tightly constrained from the measurements of the electric dipole moment of the electron. We compute the finite temperature corrections to the potential, incorporating the momentum-dependent form factors in the loop integrals to capture the effect of the strong dynamics. The impact of the resonances from the strong sector on the finite temperature potential are exponentially suppressed. The presence of explicit CP violation leads to strong first-order phase transition from a false vacuum to the electroweak vacuum where the pseudoscalar singlet has a non-zero vacuum expectation value. We illustrate that, as a result of such phase transitions, the production of potentially observable gravitational waves at future detectors will offer a complementary avenue to probe the composite Higgs models, distinct from collider experiments.

Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Colloidal Metal Nanoparticle Solutions by Circularly Polarized Light.

Shape symmetry breaking in the formation of inorganic nanostructures is of significant current interest. It was typically achieved through the growth of colloidal nanoparticles with adsorbed chiral molecules. Photochemical processes induced through asymmetric plasmon excitation by circularly polarized light in surface immobilized nanostructures also led to symmetry breaking. Here, we show that chiral symmetry breaking can be achieved by randomly rotating gold@silver core-shell nanobars in colloidal solution using circularly polarized illumination, where orientational averaging does not eliminate the symmetry breaking of an asymmetric plasmon-induced galvanic replacement reaction. Different morphological effects that are produced by circularly vs linearly polarized light illumination demonstrate the intricate effect of light polarization on the localized plasmonic-induced photochemical response. The essential features of this symmetry breaking, such as illumination wavelength dependence, were reproduced by simulations of circularly polarized light-excited-plasmon-induced hot-electron generation as the source for asymmetric metal deposition. The symmetry breaking becomes smaller in more symmetric geometrical shapes, such as triangular nanoprisms and nanocubes, and down to zero in spherical ones. The degree of symmetry breaking rises when the nanobars are immobilized on a substrate and illuminated from a single direction.

Chiral symmetry breaking, chiral partners, and the [formula omitted] and [formula omitted] in medium

We clarify the concept of chiral partners. For a vector meson, the isospin-zero and hypercharge-zero state in the flavor octet mixes with the flavor singlet state. Since the flavor singlet vector meson does not have a chiral partner, the mixed ω and ϕ mesons will not have chiral partners. This means that even when chiral symmetry is restored, these mesons will not become degenerate with their corresponding parity partners. On the other hand, the K1 and K∗ mesons are chiral partners, and both have widths smaller than 100 MeV. Therefore, we emphasize that studying these mesons in environments where chiral symmetry is restored is particularly important for understanding the effect of chiral symmetry restoration on chiral partners and their masses.

Nuclear Matter and Finite Nuclei: Recent Studies Based on Parity Doublet Model

In this review, we summarize recent studies on nuclear matter and finite nuclei based on parity doublet models. We first construct a parity doublet model (PDM), which includes the chiral invariant mass m0 of nucleons together with the mass generated by the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. We then study the density dependence of the symmetry energy in the PDM, which shows that the symmetry energy is larger for smaller chiral inavariant mass. Then, we investigate some finite nuclei by applying the Relativistic Continuum Hartree–Bogoliubov (RCHB) theory to the PDM. We present the root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) of the binding energies and charge radii, and show that m0=700 MeV is preferred by the nuclear properties. Finally, we modify the PDM by adding the isovector scalar meson a0(980), and show that the inclusion of the a0(980) enlarges the symmetry energy of the infinite nuclear matter.

Numerical indication that center vortices drive dynamical mass generation in QCD

The first calculation of the response of the momentum space quark propagator to center vortices in the ground state fields of QCD is presented. Center vortices are identified on 2+1-flavor dynamical gauge fields with mπ≃156 MeV to obtain the vortex-removed and vortex-only quark propagator. Dynamical mass generation is found to vanish upon vortex removal, while the vortex-only field is able to generate dynamical mass. These new signatures strengthen the lattice QCD evidence indicating that center vortices underpin both dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and quark confinement. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Split of the pseudocritical temperatures of chiral and confinement-deconfinement transitions by a temperature gradient

Searching of the critical endpoint (CEP) of the phase transition of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) matter in experiments is of great interest. The temperature in the fireball at a collider is location dependent, however, most theoretical studies address the scenario of uniform temperature. In this work, the effect of temperature gradients is investigated using lattice QCD approach. We find that the temperature gradient catalyzes chiral symmetry breaking, meanwhile the temperature gradient increases the Polyakov loop in the confined phase but suppresses the Polyakov loop in the deconfined phase. Furthermore, the temperature gradient decreases the pseudocritical temperature of chiral transition but increases the pseudocritical temperature of the confine-deconfine transition. It is also found that the temperature gradient can drive the system away from the singularity, implying that the CEP in the T−μ plane may move in the direction of the first-order phase transition in the phase diagram due to the temperature gradient. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Composite dark matter with forbidden annihilation

A dark matter model based on QCD-like SU(Nc) gauge theory with electroweakly interacting dark quarks is discussed. Assuming the dark quark mass m is smaller than the dynamical scale Λd ~ 4πfd, the main component of the dark matter is the lightest G-parity odd dark pion associated with chiral symmetry breaking in the dark sector. We show that nonzero dark quark mass induces the universal mass contribution to both G-parity odd and even pions, and their masses tend to be degenerate. As a result, dark pion annihilation into heavier G-parity even dark pion also affects the dark matter relic abundance. Thus, our setup naturally accommodates forbidden dark matter scenario and realizes heavy dark matter whose mass is O\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O} $$\\end{document}(1–100) TeV, which is different from conventional electroweakly interacting dark matter such as minimal dark matter. We also discuss CP-violation from the θ-term in the dark gauge sector and find that the predicted size of the electron electric dipole moment can be as large as ∼ 10−32e cm.

Large Nc\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N_c$$\\end{document} QCD phase diagram at μB=0\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\mu _B=0$$\\end{document}

Lattice studies suggest that at zero baryon chemical potential and increasing temperature there are three characteristic regimes in QCD that are connected by smooth analytical crossovers: a hadron gas regime at T<Tch∼155\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T < T_{ch}\\sim 155$$\\end{document} MeV, an intermediate regime, called stringy fluid, at Tch<T<∼3Tch\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T_{ch}< T < \\sim 3 T_{ch}$$\\end{document}, and a quark-gluon plasma regime at higher temperatures. These regimes have been interpreted to reflect different approximate symmetries and effective degrees of freedom. In the hadron gas the effective degrees of freedom are hadrons and the approximate chiral symmetry of QCD is spontaneously broken. The intermediate regime has been interpreted as lacking spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking along with the emergence of new approximate symmetry, chiral spin symmetry, that is not a symmetry of the Dirac Lagrangian, but is a symmetry of the confining part of the QCD Lagrangian. While the high temperature regime is the usual quark-gluon plasma which is often considered to reflect “deconfinement” in some way. This paper explores the behavior of these regimes of QCD as the number of colors in the theory, Nc\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N_c$$\\end{document}, gets large. In the large Nc\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N_c$$\\end{document} limit the theory is center-symmetric and notions of confinement and deconfinement are unambiguous. The energy density is O(Nc0)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\mathcal{O}(N_c^0)$$\\end{document} in the meson gas, O(Nc1)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${{\\mathcal {O}}}(N_c^1)$$\\end{document} in the intermediate regime and O(Nc2)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${{\\mathcal {O}}}(N_c^2)$$\\end{document} in the quark-gluon plasma regime. In the large Nc\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N_c$$\\end{document} limit these regimes may become distinct phases separated by first order phase transitions. The intermediate phase has the peculiar feature that glueballs should exist and have properties that are unchanged from what is seen in the vacuum (up to 1/Nc\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$1/N_c $$\\end{document} corrections), while the ordinary dilute gas of mesons with broken chiral symmetry disappears and approximate chiral spin symmetry should emerge.

Topological tight binding models on some non-trivial lattices: union of geometry, flat bands and topology

We introduce a topological tight binding model based on certain rules that we have formulated to study systems with certain non-trivial bulks. These rules allow us to study bulks that have twists and branching. We discuss certain cases in the SAB model with different number of bands, exhibiting several interesting physical properties. For every bulk there can be two sets of configurations: the orientable and the non-orientable configuration. The later exhibits several non-trivial physical properties like exact flat bands (exactly at particle hole symmetry level), zero energy states localised in the bulk, topological edge states etc. We then discuss a three band non-orientable SAB model which is easy to visualise. We also investigate the effects of disorder (both chiral symmetry preserving and breaking) in the non-orientable configurations hosting flat bands. We find for chiral symmetry preserving disorders, some of them (non-degenerate flat band) are robust to large disorders while others (degenerate flat band) exhibit an insulator to metal transition beyond certain critical disorder strength due to band gap closing as a result of the broadening of the zero energy states. For chiral symmetry breaking disorders, in both the cases the zero energy bulk states broaden and close the gap beyond certain critical disorder strength.

Dark matter relic density in strongly interacting dark sectors with light vector mesons

Stable dark matter particles may arise as pseudo-Goldstone bosons from the confinement of dark quarks interacting via a non-Abelian gauge force. Their relic abundance is determined not by annihilations into visible particles but by dark pion number-changing processes within the dark sector, such as 3πD→2πD. However, if the dark vector mesons ρD are light enough for 3πD→πDρD annihilations to be kinematically allowed, this process dominates and significantly delays freeze-out. As a result, the preferred dark matter mass scale increases and bounds from the Bullet Cluster can be evaded. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

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

Revisiting the spatially inhomogeneous condensates in the (1+1) -dimensional chiral Gross–Neveu model via the bosonic two-point function in the infinite-N limit

This work shows that the known phase boundary between the phase with chiral symmetry and the phase of spatially inhomogeneous chiral symmetry breaking in the phase diagram of the (1+1) -dimensional chiral Gross–Neveu (GN) model can be detected from the bosonic two-point function alone and thereby confirms and extends previous results (Schön and Thies 2000 At The Frontier of Particle Physics: Handbook of QCD, Boris Ioffe Festschrift vol 3 (World Scentific) ch 33, pp 1945–2032; Boehmer et al 2008 Phys. Rev. D 78 065043; Boehmer and Thies 2009 Phys. Rev. D 80 125038; Thies 2018 Phys. Rev. D 98 096019; Thies 2022 Phys. Rev. D 105 116003). The analysis is referred to as the stability analysis of the symmetric phase and does not require knowledge about spatial modulations of condensates. We perform this analysis in the infinite-N limit at nonzero temperature and nonzero quark and chiral chemical potentials also inside the inhomogeneous phase. Thereby we observe an interesting relation between the bosonic 1-particle irreducible two-point vertex function of the chiral GN model and the spinodal line of the GN model.

Study of the effects of external imaginary electric field and chiral chemical potential on quark matter

The behavior of quark matter with both external electric field and chiral chemical potential is theoretically and experimentally interesting to consider. In this paper, the case of simultaneous presence of imaginary electric field and chiral chemical potential is investigated using the lattice QCD approach with Nf=1+1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N_f=1+1$$\\end{document} dynamical staggered fermions. We find that overall both the imaginary electric field and the chiral chemical potential can exacerbate chiral symmetry breaking, which is consistent with theoretical predictions. However we also find a non-monotonic behavior of chiral condensation at specific electric field strengths and chiral chemical potentials. The behavior of Polyakov loop in the complex plane is not significantly affected by chiral chemical potential in the region of the parameters considered.

Possible scenario of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in the interacting instanton liquid model

We compute the vacuum energy density as a function of the quark condensate in the interacting instanton liquid model (IILM) and examine the pattern of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking from its behavior around the origin. This evaluation is performed by using simulation results of the IILM. We find that chiral symmetry is broken in the U(1)A anomaly assisted way in the IILM with three-flavor dynamical quarks. We call such a symmetry breaking the anomaly-driven breaking, which is one of the scenarios of chiral symmetry breaking proposed in the context of the chiral effective theories. We also find that the instanton-quark interaction included in the IILM plays a crucial role for the anomaly-driven breaking by comparing the full and the quenched IILM calculations. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Observations on spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and the mass gap of QCD in finite volume

We present a lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) simulation with 2 + 1 + 1 flavor full QCD ensembles using near-physical quark masses and different spatial sizes L, at a ∼ 0.055 fm. The results show that the scalar and pesudoscalar 2-point correlator with a valence pion mass of approximately 230 MeV become degenerated at L ≤ 1.0 fm, and such an observation suggests that the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking disappears effectively at this point. At the same time, the mass gap between the nucleon and pion masses remains larger than ΛQCD in the entire L ∈ [0.2, 0.7] fm range.

Dark matter phenomenology and phase transition dynamics of the next-to-minimal composite Higgs model with a dilaton

In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive study of the next-to-minimal composite Higgs model (NMCHM) extended with a dilaton field χ (denoted as NMCHMχ). A pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB) η, resulting from the SO(6)→SO(5) breaking, serves as a dark matter (DM) candidate. The inclusion of the dilaton field is helpful for evading the stringent constraints from dark matter direct detection, as it allows for an accidental cancellation between the amplitudes of DM-nucleon scattering, an outcome of the mixing between the dilaton and Higgs fields. The presence of the dilaton field also enriches the phase transition patterns in the early universe. We identify two types of phase transitions: (i) a 1-step phase transition, where the chiral symmetry and electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) occur simultaneously, and (ii) a 2-step phase transition, where the chiral symmetry breaking transition takes place first, followed by a second phase transition corresponding to EWSB. Since the first-order phase transitions can be strong due to supercooling in our model, we also examine the stochastic background of gravitational waves generated by these phase transitions. We find that these gravitational waves hold promise for detection in future space-based gravitational wave experiments, such as LISA, Taiji, BBO, and DECIGO. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Holography for Sp(2Nc) gauge dynamics: from composite Higgs to technicolour

We study Sp(2Nc) gauge dynamics with two Dirac fermion flavours in the fundamental representation. These strongly coupled systems underlie some composite Higgs models with a global symmetry breaking pattern SU(4)→Sp(4), leading to a light quartet of pseudo-Goldstone bosons that can play the role of the Higgs. Including four-fermion interactions can rotate the vacuum to a technicolour breaking pattern. Using gauge/gravity duality, we study the underlying gauge dynamics. Our model incorporates the Nc-specific running of the fermion anomalous dimension and can thus distinguish between specific gauge groups. We determine the bound-state spectrum of the UV SU(4)→Sp(4) symmetry breaking model, also including fermion masses and mass splitting, and display the Nc dependence. The inclusion of a four-fermion interaction shows the emergence of three Goldstone bosons on the path to technicolour dynamics.

Probing the quantum nature of gravity using a Bose-Einstein condensate

The effect of noise induced by gravitons has been investigated using a Bose-Einstein condensate. The general complex scalar field theory with a quadratic self-interaction term has been considered in the presence of a gravitational wave. The gravitational wave perturbation is then considered as a sum of discrete Fourier modes in the momentum space. Varying the action and making use of the principle of least action, one obtains two equations of motion corresponding to the gravitational perturbation and the time-dependent part of the pseudo-Goldstone boson. Coming to an operatorial representation and quantizing the phase space variables via appropriately introduced canonical commutation relations between the canonically conjugate variables corresponding to the graviton and bosonic part of the total system, one obtains a proper quantum gravity setup. Then we obtain the Bogoliubov coefficients from the solution of the time-dependent part of the pseudo-Goldstone boson and construct the covariance metric for the bosons initially being in a squeezed state. The entries of the covariance matrix now involves a stochastic contribution which results in an operatorial stochastic structure of the quantum Fisher information. Using the stochastic average of the Fisher information, we obtain a lower bound on the amplitude parameter of the gravitational wave. As the entire calculation is done at zero temperature, the bosonic system, by construction, will behave as a Bose-Einstein condensate. For a Bose-Einstein condensate with a single mode, we observe that the lower bound of the expectation value of the square of the uncertainty in the amplitude measurement does not become infinite when the total observational term approaches zero. It always has a finite value if the gravitons are initially in a squeezed state with high enough squeezing. In order to sum over all possible momentum modes, we next consider a noise term with a suitable Gaussian weight factor which decays over time. We then obtain the lower bound on the final expectation value of the square of the variance in the amplitude parameter. Because of the noise induced by the graviton, there is a minimum value of the measurement time below which it is impossible to detect any gravitational wave using a Bose-Einstein condensate. Finally, we consider interaction between the phonon modes of the Bose-Einstein condensate which results in a decoherence. We observe that the decoherence effect becomes significant for gravitons with minimal squeezing. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Scaling results for charged sectors of near conformal QCD

We provide the leading near conformal corrections on a cylinder to the scaling dimension of the lowest-lying fixed isospin charge Q operators defined at the lower boundary of the quantum chromodynamics conformal window, Δ˜Q=Δ˜Q*+(mσ4πν)2QΔ3B1+(mπ(θ)4πν)4Q23(1−γ)B2+O(mσ4,mπ8,mσ2mπ4). Here, Δ˜Q/r is the classical ground state energy of the theory on R×Sr3 at fixed isospin charge while Δ˜Q* is the scaling dimension at the leading order in the large charge expansion. In the conformal limit mσ=mπ=0, the state-operator correspondence implies Δ˜Q=Δ˜Q*. The near-conformal corrections are expressed in powers of the dilaton and pion masses in units of the chiral symmetry breaking scale 4πν with the θ-angle dependence encoded directly in the pion mass. The characteristic Q-scaling is dictated by the quark mass operator anomalous dimension γ and the one characterizing the dilaton potential Δ. The coefficients Bi with i=1,2 depend on the geometry of the cylinder and properties of the nearby conformal field theory. Published by the American Physical Society 2024