Deconfinement Phase Transition Research Articles

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

Topological data analysis of monopole current networks in $U(1)$ lattice gauge theory

In 44-dimensional pure compact U(1)U(1) lattice gauge theory, we analyse topological aspects of the dynamics of monopoles across the deconfinement phase transition. We do this using tools from Topological Data Analysis (TDA). We demonstrate that observables constructed from the zeroth and first homology groups of monopole current networks may be used to quantitatively and robustly locate the critical inverse coupling \beta_{c}βc through finite-size scaling. Our method provides a mathematically robust framework for the characterisation of topological invariants related to monopole currents, putting on firmer ground earlier investigations. Moreover, our approach can be generalised to the study of Abelian monopoles in non-Abelian gauge theories.

Reduction of pseudocritical temperatures of chiral restoration and deconfinement phase transitions in a magnetized PNJL model

We investigate the chiral restoration and deconfinement phase transitions under an external magnetic field in the frame of a Pauli-Villars regularized Polyakov loop extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. A running Polyakov loop scale parameter T0(eB) is introduced to mimic the reaction of the gluon sector to the presence of magnetic fields. It is found that a decreasing T0(eB) with magnetic fields can realize the inverse magnetic catalysis phenomena of chiral condensates of u and d quarks, increase of Polyakov loop, and the reduction of pseudocritical temperatures of chiral restoration and deconfinement phase transitions. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Center vortex geometry at finite temperature

The geometry of center vortices is studied in SU(3) gauge theory at finite temperature to capture the key structural changes that occur through the deconfinement phase transition. Visualizations of the vortex structure in temporal and spatial slices of the lattice reveal a preference for the vortex sheet to align with the temporal dimension above the critical temperature. This is quantified through a correlation measure. A collection of vortex statistics, including vortex and branching point densities, and vortex path lengths between branching points, are analyzed to highlight internal shifts in vortex behavior arising from the loss of confinement. We find the zero-temperature inclination of branching points to cluster at short distances vanishes at high temperatures, embodying a rearrangement of branching points within the vortex structure. These findings establish the many aspects of center vortex geometry that characterize the phase transition in pure gauge theory. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Negative Barnett effect, negative moment of inertia of the gluon plasma, and thermal evaporation of the chromomagnetic condensate

We discuss the negativity of the moment of inertia of (quark-)gluon plasma in a window of “supervortical” range of temperatures above the deconfining phase transition, T≃(1…1.5)Tc, found recently in numerical Monte Carlo simulations by two independent methods. In our work, we confirm numerically that the origin of this effect is rooted in the thermal evaporation of the nonperturbative chromomagnetic condensate. We argue that the negative moment of inertia of gluon plasma indicates the presence of a novel effect, the negative spin-vortical coupling for gluons resulting in a negative gluonic Barnett effect: the spin polarization of gluons exceeds the total angular momentum of rotating plasma, thus forcing the orbital angular momentum to take negative values in the supervortical range of temperatures. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Detecting phase transitions in lattice gauge theories: Production and dissolution of topological defects in 4D compact electrodynamics

We present the application of microcanonical inflection point analysis (MIPA)—a novel and powerful method for the systematic identification and classification of phase transitions (PTs)—to the microcanonical formulation of lattice gauge theories. Specifically, we explore how this approach sheds light on collective phenomena such as the emergence of topological order in quantum field theories. As a case study, we show how to systematically characterize PTs in 4D U(1) lattice electrodynamics. Beyond identifying the well-established deconfinement PT (DPT) associated with pair dissolution, classified as a first-order PT, we uncover two higher-order PTs not observed before. Thanks to the application of the MIPA, we identify an independent third-order PT in the confined phase and indications of a dependent third-order PT in the deconfined (Coulomb) phase. To gain physical insights into these PTs, we numerically compute the average number density of monopolar and pair defects as a function of energy. Notably, our findings reveal that the pair dissolution mechanism extends beyond a singular transitional phenomenon coinciding with the DPT. Instead, it encompasses a spectrum of transitional phenomena, as indicated by the rates of acceleration and deceleration in the dissolution of pairs as a function of energy. Finally, we briefly discuss how such a method can be extended to more complex quantum field theories on a lattice. 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

SO(5) Deconfined Phase Transition under the Fuzzy-Sphere Microscope: Approximate Conformal Symmetry, Pseudo-Criticality, and Operator Spectrum

The deconfined quantum critical point (DQCP) is an example of phase transitions beyond the Landau symmetry-breaking paradigm that attracts wide interest. However, its nature has not been settled after decades of study. In this paper, we apply the recently proposed fuzzy-sphere regularization to study the SO(5) nonlinear sigma model with a topological Wess-Zumino-Witten term, which serves as a dual description of the DQCP with an exact SO(5) symmetry. We demonstrate that the fuzzy sphere functions as a powerful microscope, magnifying and revealing a wealth of crucial information about the DQCP, ultimately paving the way toward its final answer. In particular, through exact diagonalization, we provide clear evidence that the DQCP exhibits approximate conformal symmetry. The evidence includes the existence of a conserved SO(5) symmetry current, a stress tensor, and integer-spaced levels between conformal primaries and their descendants. Most remarkably, we identify 23 primaries and 76 conformal descendants. Furthermore, by examining the renormalization group flow of the lowest symmetry singlet as well as other primaries, we provide numerical evidence in favor of DQCP being pseudo-critical, with the approximate conformal symmetry plausibly emerging from nearby complex fixed points. The primary spectrum we compute also has important implications, including the conclusion that the SO(5) DQCP cannot describe a direct transition from the Néel to valence bond solid phase on the honeycomb lattice. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

A Bridge between Trace Anomalies and Deconfinement Phase Transitions

Inspired by the fact that both the dilaton potential encoding the trace anomalies of QCD and the Polyakov loop potential measuring the deconfinement phase transition can be expressed in the logarithmic forms, as well as the fact that the scale symmetry is expected to be restoring and colors are deconfined in extreme conditions such as high temperatures and/or densities, we conjecture a relation between the dilaton potential and the Polyakov loop potential. Explicitly, we start from the Coleman–Weinberg type potential of a real scalar field—a dilaton or conformal compensator—and make an ansatz of the relation between this scalar field and the Polyakov loop to obtain the Polyakov loop potential, which can be parameterized in Lattice QCD (LQCD) in the pure glue sector. We find that the coefficients of Polyakov potential fitted from Lattice data are automatically satisfied in this ansatz, the locations of deconfinement and scale restoration are locked to each other, and the first-order phase transition can be realized. Extensions to the low-energy effective quark models are also discussed. The conjectured relation may deepen our understanding of the evolution of the universe, the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking, the phase diagram of QCD matter, and the properties of neutron stars.

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

Gravitational Waves of Holographic QCD Phase Transition with Hyperscaling Violation

In this paper, we study the gravitational waves of holographic QCD phase transition with hyperscaling violation. We consider an Einstein–Maxwell Dilaton background and discuss the confinement–deconfinement phase transition between thermally charged AdS and AdS black holes. We find that hyperscaling violation reduces the phase transition temperature. In a further study, we discuss the effect of hyperscaling violation on the GW spectrum. We found that the hyperscaling violation exponent suppresses the peak frequency of the total GW spectrum. Moreover, the results of the GW spectrum may be detected by IPTA, SKA, BBO, and NANOGrav. We also find that the hyperscaling violation exponent suppresses the peak frequency of the bubble-collision spectrum h2Ωenv. Hyperscaling violation enhances the energy densities of the sound wave spectrum h2Ωsw and the MHD turbulence spectrum h2Ωturb. The total GW spectrum is dominated by the contribution of the bubble collision in runaway bubbles case.

Numerical evidence for fractional topological objects in SU(3) gauge theory

The continued development of models that propose the existence of fractional topological objects in the Yang-Mills vacuum has called for a quantitative method to study the topological structure of SU(N) gauge theory. We present an original numerical algorithm that can identify distinct topological objects in the nontrivial ground-state fields and approximate the net charge contained within them. This analysis is performed for SU(3) color at a range of temperatures crossing the deconfinement phase transition, allowing for an assessment of how the topological structure evolves with temperature. We find a promising consistency with the instanton-dyon model for the structure of the QCD vacuum at finite temperature. Several other quantities, such as object density and radial size, are also analyzed to elicit a further understanding of the fundamental structure of ground-state gluon fields. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Krylov complexity as an order parameter for deconfinement phase transitions at large N

Krylov complexity has been proposed as a diagnostic of chaos in non-integrable lattice and quantum mechanical systems, and if the system is chaotic, Krylov complexity grows exponentially with time. However, when Krylov complexity is applied to quantum field theories, even in free theory, it grows exponentially with time. This exponential growth in free theory is simply due to continuous momentum in non-compact space and has nothing to do with the mass spectrum of theories. Thus by compactifying space sufficiently, exponential growth of Krylov complexity due to continuous momentum can be avoided. In this paper, we propose that the Krylov complexity of operators such as 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} = Tr[FμνFμν] can be an order parameter of confinement/deconfinement transitions in large N quantum field theories on such a compactified space. We explicitly give a prescription of the compactification at finite temperature to distinguish the continuity of spectrum due to momentum and mass spectrum. We then calculate the Krylov complexity of N\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{N} $$\\end{document} = 4, 0 SU(N) Yang-Mills theories in the large N limit by using holographic analysis of the spectrum and show that the behavior of Krylov complexity reflects the confinement/deconfinement phase transitions through the continuity of mass spectrum.

Correlation between the symmetry energy slope and the deconfinement phase transition

Correlation between the symmetry energy slope and the deconfinement phase transition

Thermodynamic properties and phase diagram of quark matter within non-extensive Polyakov chiral SU (3) quark mean field model

In the present study, we applied Tsallis non-extensive statistics to investigate the thermodynamic properties and phase diagram of quark matter in the Polyakov chiral SU(3) quark mean field model. Within this model, the properties of the quark matter were modified through the scalar fields , vector fields , ϕ, and Polyakov fields Φ and at finite temperature and chemical potential. Non-extensive effects were introduced through a dimensionless parameter q, and the results were compared to those of the extensive case ( ). In the non-extensive case, the exponential in the Fermi-Dirac (FD) function was modified to a q-exponential form. The influence of the q parameter on the thermodynamic properties, pressure, energy, and entropy density, as well as trace anomaly, was investigated. The speed of sound and specific heat with non-extensive effects were also studied. Furthermore, the effect of non-extensivity on the deconfinement phase transition as well as the chiral phase transition of and s quarks was explored. We found that the critical end point (CEP), which defines the point in the phase diagram where the order of the phase transition changes, shifts to a lower value of temperature, , and a higher value of chemical potential, , as the non-extensivity is increased, that is, 1.

Exploring the chiral and deconfinement phase transitions in a self-consistent PNJL model

Exploring the chiral and deconfinement phase transitions in a self-consistent PNJL model

Deconfinement transition in the revolving bag model

Based on the bag model, we revisit the deconfinement phase transition under rotation. On top of the usual rotational energy for noninteracting particles, we perturbatively analyze the revolution effect of the hadron bag, i.e., of the potential confining quarks. The revolution effect can be phenomenologically translated into the rotational correction to the QCD vacuum energy or the gluon condensate. We demonstrate that if the revolution effect is (is not) taken into account, the transition temperature increases (decreases) as the angular velocity increased. The ‘revolving bag model’ provides a feasible explanation of the recent lattice simulations showing, contrary to effective models, that rotation favors the confined phase.

Splitting of chiral and deconfinement phase transitions induced by rotation

Splitting of chiral and deconfinement phase transitions induced by rotation

What Is the Nature of the HESS J1731-347 Compact Object?

Once further confirmed in future analyses, the radius and mass measurement of HESS J1731-347 with and will be among the lightest and smallest compact objects ever detected. This raises many questions about its nature and opens up the window for different theories to explain such a measurement. In this article, we use the information from Doroshenko et al. on the mass, radius, and surface temperature together with the multimessenger observations of neutron stars to investigate the possibility that HESS J1731-347 is one of the lightest observed neutron star, a strange quark star, a hybrid star with an early deconfinement phase transition, or a dark matter–admixed neutron star. The nucleonic and quark matter are modeled within realistic equation of states (EOSs) with a self-consistent calculation of the pairing gaps in quark matter. By performing the joint analysis of the thermal evolution and mass–radius constraint, we find evidence that within a 1σ confidence level, HESS J1731-347 is consistent with the neutron star scenario with the soft EOS as well as with a strange and hybrid star with the early deconfinement phase transition with a strong quark pairing and neutron star admixed with dark matter.

Probing supersymmetric black holes with surface defects

It has long been conjectured that the large N deconfinement phase transition of mathcal{N} = 4 SU(N) super-Yang-Mills corresponds via AdS/CFT to the Hawking-Page transition in which black holes dominate the thermal ensemble, and quantitative evidence of this has come through the recent matching of the superconformal index of frac{1}{16} -BPS states to the supersymmetric black hole entropy. We introduce the half-BPS Gukov-Witten surface defect as a probe of the superconformal index, which also serves as an order parameter for the deconfinement transition. This can be studied directly in field theory as a modification of the usual unitary matrix model or in the dual description as a D3-brane probe in the background of a (complex) supersymmetric black hole. Using a saddle point approximation, we determine our defect index in the large N limit as a simple function of the chemical potentials and show independently that it is reproduced by the renormalized action of the brane in the black hole background. Along the way, we also comment on the Cardy limit and the thermodynamics of the D3-brane in the generalized ensemble. The defect index sharply distinguishes between the confining and the deconfining phases of the gauge theory and thus is a supersymmetric non-perturbative order parameter for these large N phase transitions which deserves further investigation. Finally, our work provides an example where the properties of a black hole coupled to an external system can be analyzed precisely.