Confinement-deconfinement Transition Research Articles

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

Subvolume method for SU(2) Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature: topological charge distributions

We apply the previously-developed sub-volume method to study the θ-dependence of the four-dimensional SU(2) Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature. We calculate the first two coefficients, the topological susceptibility χ and the fourth cumulant b2, in the θ-expansion of the free energy density around the critical temperature (Tc) for the confinement-deconfinement transition. Lattice calculations are performed with three different spatial sizes 243, 323, 483 to monitor finite size effects, while the temporal size is fixed to be 8. The systematic uncertainty associated with the sub-volume extrapolation is studied with special care. The sub-volume method allows us to determine the values of b2 much more accurately than the standard full-volume method, and we successfully identify the temperature dependence of b2 around Tc. Our numerical results suggest that the θ-dependence of the free energy density near θ = 0 changes from 4χ(1 − cos(θ/2)) to χ(1 − cos θ) as the temperature crosses Tc.

Rotating SU(2) gluon matter and deconfinement at finite temperature

In this work a non-abelian gauge theory is reformulated in a rotating frame. With this new formalism, the influence of the background rotation on the color deconfinement transition for a pure SU(2) gluon system has been studied. The KvBLL caloron, which is a color neutral and topologically nontrivial solution of Yang-Mills equation at finite temperature, is reexamined under rotation and adopted as the confined vacuum of such a system. With rotation-modified solutions of the caloron's constituent solitons, i.e. dyons, the non-perturbative part of effective potential of the rotating system has been obtained. Combining with the perturbative potential by Gaussian fluctuations, the critical temperature of confinement-deconfinement phase transition is investigated. It is found that neither the rotational semi-classical potential nor Gaussian fluctuations can confine color charges more tightly when the rotation becomes faster. While only a stronger coupling constant is able to make the critical temperature increase with angular velocity, as what indicated in lattice simulations. And it is found a non-monotonic dependence of the critical temperature on the angular velocity is established because of the competition between these two contrary contributions.

Instanton confinement-deconfinement transitions: Stability of pseudogap phases and topological order

Instanton confinement-deconfinement transitions: Stability of pseudogap phases and topological order

Ergodicity Breaking Under Confinement in Cold-Atom Quantum Simulators

The quantum simulation of gauge theories on synthetic quantum matter devices has gained a lot of traction in the last decade, making possible the observation of a range of exotic quantum many-body phenomena. In this work, we consider the spin-1/2 quantum link formulation of 1+1D quantum electrodynamics with a topological θ-angle, which can be used to tune a confinement-deconfinement transition. Exactly mapping this system onto a PXP model with mass and staggered magnetization terms, we show an intriguing interplay between confinement and the ergodicity-breaking paradigms of quantum many-body scarring and Hilbert-space fragmentation. We map out the rich dynamical phase diagram of this model, finding an ergodic phase at small values of the mass μ and confining potential χ, an emergent integrable phase for large μ, and a fragmented phase for large values of both parameters. We also show that the latter hosts resonances that lead to a vast array of effective models. We propose experimental probes of our findings, which can be directly accessed in current cold-atom setups.

Entanglement and confinement in lattice gauge theory tensor networks

We develop a transfer operator approach for the calculation of Rényi entanglement entropies in arbitrary (i.e. Abelian and non-Abelian) pure lattice gauge theory projected entangled pair states in 2+1 dimensions. It is explicitly shown how the long-range behavior of these quantities gives rise to an entanglement area law in both the thermodynamic limit and in the continuum. We numerically demonstrate the applicability of our method to the ℤ2 lattice gauge theory and relate some entanglement properties to the confinement-deconfinement transition therein. We provide evidence that Rényi entanglement entropies in certain cases do not provide a complete probe of (de)confinement properties compared to Wilson loop expectation values as other genuine (nonlocal) observables.

Gravitational waves from composite dark sectors

We study under which conditions a first-order phase transition in a composite dark sector can yield an observable stochastic gravitational-wave signal. To this end, we employ the Linear-Sigma model featuring Nf = 3, 4, 5 flavours and perform a Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis computation also accounting for the effects of the Polyakov loop. The model allows us to investigate the chiral phase transition in regimes that can mimic QCD-like theories incorporating in addition composite dynamics associated with the effects of confinement-deconfinement phase transition. A further benefit of this approach is that it allows to study the limit in which the effective interactions are weak. We show that strong first-order phase transitions occur for weak effective couplings of the composite sector leading to gravitational-wave signals potentially detectable at future experimental facilities.

Topology of Hawking-Page transition in Born-Infeld AdS black holes

Black holes in anti de Sitter spacetimes undergo phase transitions which typically lead to the existence of critical points, that can be classified using topological techniques. Availing the Bragg-Williams construction of an off-shell free energy we compute the topological charge of the Hawking-Page (HP) transition for Einstein-Born-Infeld black holes in anti de Sitter (AdS) spacetime and match the result with the confinement-deconfinement transition in the dual gauge theory, which turn out to be in perfect agreement.

Cosmological phase transitions in composite Higgs models

We investigate cosmological phase transitions in various composite Higgs models consisting of four-dimensional asymptotically-free gauge field theories. Each model may lead to a confinement-deconfinement transition and a phase transition associated with the spontaneous breaking of a global symmetry that realizes the Standard Model Higgs field as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson. Based on the argument of universality, we discuss the order of the phase transition associated with the global symmetry breaking by studying the renormalization group flow of the corresponding linear sigma model at finite temperature, which is calculated by utilizing the ϵ-expansion technique at the one-loop order. Our analysis indicates that some composite Higgs models accommodate phenomenologically interesting first-order phase transitions. We also explore the confinement-deconfinement transition in a UV-completed composite Higgs model based on a Sp(2Nc) gauge theory. It is found that the first-order phase transition is favored when the number of degrees of freedom for the Sp(2Nc) gauge field is much larger than that of matter fields in the fundamental representation of Sp(2Nc). We comment on the gravitational wave signal generated by the confinement-deconfinement transition and its detectability at future observations. Our discussions motivate further studies on phase transitions in composite Higgs models with the use of lattice simulations.

Complexity, scaling, and a phase transition

We investigate the holographic complexity of CFTs compactified on a circle with a Wilson line, dual to magnetized solitons in AdS4 and AdS5. These theories have a confinement-deconfinement phase transition as a function of the Wilson line, and the complexity of formation acts as an order parameter for this transition. Through explicit calculation, we show that proposed complexity functionals based on volume and action obey a scaling relation with radius of the circle and further prove that a broad family of potential complexity functionals obeys this scaling behavior. As a result, we conjecture that the scaling law applies to the complexity of conformal field theories on a circle in more general circumstances.

Gauge theory description of Rydberg atom arrays with a tunable blockade radius

We discuss a Rydberg atom chain with a tunable blockade radius from the gauge theoretic perspective. When the blockade radius is one lattice spacing, this system can be formulated in terms of the PXP model, and there is a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ Ising phase transition known to be equivalent to a confinement-deconfinement transition in a gauge theory, the lattice Schwinger model. Further increasing the blockade radius, one can add a next-nearest neighbor (NNN) interaction into the PXP model. We discuss the interpretation of NNN interaction in terms of the gauge theory and how finite NNN interaction alters the deconfinement behavior and propose a corresponding experimental protocol. When the blockade radius reaches two lattice spacing, the model reduces to the PPXPP model. A novel gauge theory equivalent to the PPXPP model is formulated, and the phases in the two formulations are delineated. These results are readily explored experimentally in Rydberg quantum simulators.

Some Aspects of Persistent Homology Analysis on Phase Transition: Examples in an Effective QCD Model with Heavy Quarks

Recently, persistent homology analysis has been used to investigate phase structure. In this study, we apply persistent homology analysis to the QCD effective model with heavy quarks at finite imaginary chemical potential; i.e., the Potts model with the suitably tuned external field. Since we try to obtain a deeper understanding of the relationship between persistent homology and phase transition in QCD, we consider the imaginary chemical potential because the clear phase transition, which is closely related to the confinement-deconfinement transition, exists. In the actual analysis, we employ the point-cloud approach to consider persistent homology. In addition, we investigate the fluctuation of persistent diagrams to obtain additional information on the relationship between the spatial topology and the phase transition.

Tuning the Topological θ -Angle in Cold-Atom Quantum Simulators of Gauge Theories

The topological θ-angle in gauge theories engenders a series of fundamental phenomena, including violations of charge-parity (CP) symmetry, dynamical topological transitions, and confinement-deconfinement transitions. At the same time, it poses major challenges for theoretical studies, as it implies a sign problem in numerical simulations. Analog quantum simulators open the promising prospect of treating quantum many-body systems with such topological terms, but, contrary to their digital counterparts, they have not yet demonstrated the capacity to control the θ-angle. Here, we demonstrate how a tunable topological θ-term can be added to a prototype theory with U(1) gauge symmetry, a discretized version of quantum electrodynamics in one spatial dimension. As we show, the model can be realized experimentally in a single-species Bose-Hubbard model in an optical superlattice with three different spatial periods, thus requiring only standard experimental resources. Through numerical calculations obtained from the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group method and exact diagonalization, we benchmark the model system, and illustrate how salient effects due to the θ-term can be observed. These include charge confinement, the weakening of quantum many-body scarring, as well as the disappearance of Coleman’s phase transition due to explicit breaking of CP symmetry. This work opens the door towards studying the rich physics of topological gauge-theory terms in large-scale cold-atom quantum simulators.4 MoreReceived 15 April 2022Revised 19 September 2022Accepted 26 September 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.3.040316Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasColor confinementColor deconfinementConfinementQuantum simulationPhysical Systems1-dimensional systemsBose gasesTechniquesBose-Hubbard modelDensity matrix renormalization groupExact diagonalizationGauge symmetriesLattice gauge theoryPerturbation theoryAtomic, Molecular & OpticalCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Fractional vortices, Z2 gauge theory, and the confinement-deconfinement transition

In this Letter we discuss the classical three-dimensional XY model whose nearest-neighbor interaction is a mixture of $cos({\ensuremath{\theta}}_{i}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\theta}}_{j})$ (ferromagnetic) and $cos2({\ensuremath{\theta}}_{i}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\theta}}_{j})$ (nematic). This model is dual to a theory with integer and half-integer vortices. While both types of vortices interact with a noncompact $U(1)$ gauge field, the half-integer vortices interact with an extra interaction mediated by a ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ gauge field. We shall discuss the confinement-deconfinement transition of the half-integer vortices, the Wilson and the `t Hooft loops, and their mutual statistics in path integral language. In addition, we shall present a quantum version of the classical model which exhibits these physics.

Deconfinement and error thresholds in holography

We study the error threshold properties of holographic quantum error-correcting codes. We demonstrate that holographic CFTs admit an algebraic threshold, which is related to the confinement-deconfinement phase transition. We then apply geometric intuition from holography and the Hawking-Page phase transition to motivate the CFT result, and comment on potential extensions to other confining theories.

Fracton topological order at finite temperature

As new kinds of stabilizer code models, fracton models have been promising in realizing quantum memory or quantum hard drives. However, it has been shown that the fracton topological order of 3D fracton models occurs only at zero temperature. In this Letter, we show that higher dimensional fracton models can support a fracton topological order below a nonzero critical temperature $T_c$. Focusing on a typical 4D X-cube model, we show that there is a finite critical temperature $T_c$ by analyzing its free energy from duality. We also obtained the expectation value of the 't Hooft loops in the 4D X-cube model, which directly shows a confinement-deconfinement phase transition at finite temperature. This finite-temperature phase transition can be understood as spontaneously breaking the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ one-form subsystem symmetry. Moreover, we propose a new no-go theorem for finite-temperature quantum fracton topological order.

Study of two color QCD on large lattices

We study two colors lattice QCD (${\mathrm{QC}}_{2}\mathrm{D}$) with two flavors of staggered fermions on ${40}^{4}$ and ${32}^{4}$ lattices with lattice spacing $a=0.048\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{fm}$ in the wide range of the quark chemical potential ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{q}$. Our focus is on the confinement-deconfinement transition in this theory. Thus we compute the string tension from the Wilson loops and the static quark free energy from the Polyakov loops. We find that the deconfinement transition found earlier in the range ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{q}\ensuremath{\approx}800--1000\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$ is shifted to higher values. This shift is attributed to decreasing of the lattice spacing used in our simulations in comparison with the earlier study.

A novel background field approach to the confinement-deconfinement transition

We propose a novel approach to the confinement-deconfinement transition in Yang-Mills theories in the context of gauge-fixed calculations. The method is based on a background-field generalisation of the Landau gauge (to which it reduces at vanishing temperature) with a given, center-symmetric background. This is to be contrasted with most implementations of background field methods in gauge theories, where one uses a variable, self-consistent background. Our proposal is a bona fide gauge fixing that can easily be implemented on the lattice and in continuum approaches. The resulting gauge-fixed action explicitly exhibits the center symmetry of the nonzero temperature theory that controls the confinement-deconfinement transition. We show that, in that gauge, the electric susceptibility diverges at a second order transition [e.g., in the SU(2) theory], so that the gluon propagator is a clear probe of the transition. We implement our proposal in the perturbative Curci-Ferrari model, known for its successful description of various infrared aspects of Yang-Mills theories, including the confinement-deconfinement transition. Our one-loop calculation confirms our general expectation for the susceptibility while providing transition temperatures in excellent agreement with the SU(2) and SU(3) lattice values. Finally, the Polyakov loops above the transition show a more moderate rise, in contrast to previous implementations of the Curci-Ferrari model using a self-consistent background, and our SU(3) result agrees quite well with the lattice data in the range [0,2T_c][0,2Tc].

Finite temperature 0−+ glueball spectrum from non-susy D3 brane of Type IIB string theory

Here, we calculate the pseudo-scalar glueball mass at finite temperature from the holographic QCD in 3+1 dimensions. The decoupled geometry of the non-supersymmetric (non-susy) D3 brane at finite temperature, which is the solution of type IIB supergravity, is considered as the dual theory of QCD. We calculate the mass spectrum from the axion fluctuation in this gravity background using WKB approximations. Approximating the WKB equation for various orders of mass, we derive the analytical expressions of the mass spectrum of 0−+ at finite temperature. Finally, we evaluate the masses of the ground state and the first excited state of the pseudo-scalar glueball numerically, as, m−+=2.5 GeV and m−+⁎=3.8 GeV respectively, from the complete WKB equation. The mass of a given state is found to decrease with increasing temperature and becomes zero at confinement-deconfinement transition temperature which is consistent with the idea of confinement and also matches with some recent lattice results. From this temperature variation, the QCD transition point is found to be about 186 MeV.

Chern-Simons superconductors and their instabilities

Two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets host rich physics, including long-range ordering, high-$T_c$ superconductivity, quantum spin liquid behavior, topological ordering, a variety of other exotic phases, and quantum criticalities. Frustrating perturbations in antiferromagnets may give rise to strong quantum fluctuations, challenging the theoretical understanding of the many-body ground state. Here we develop a method to describe the quantum antiferromagnets using fermionic degrees of freedom. The method is based on a formally exact mapping between spin exchange models and theories describing fermionic matter with the emergent $U(1)$ Chern-Simons gauge field. For the planar N\'{e}el state, this mapping self-consistently generates the Chern-Simons superconductor mean-field ground state of introduced spinless fermions. We systematically compare the Chern-Simons superconductor state with the planar N\'{e}el state at the level of collective modes as well as order parameters. We reveal qualitative and quantitative correspondences between these two states. We demonstrate that such a construction using the fractionalized excitations and Chern-Simons gauge field can not only describe the N\'{e}el order but can also be applied to study quantum spin liquids. Furthermore, we show that the confinement-deconfinement transitions from the N\'{e}el order to quantum spin liquids are signaled and characterized by the instabilities of Chern-Simons superconductors, driven by strong frustration. The results suggest observing and classifying the descendants of antiferromagnets, including other ordered states and unconventional superconductors, as well as emergent quantum spin liquids.