Holographic QCD Model Research Articles

Inverse magnetic catalysis and energy loss in a holographic QCD model

In this paper, we consider the Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton holographic model for light quarks with nonzero magnetic field and chemical potential. First, we study the phase diagrams in T−μ and T−B planes. We observe inverse magnetic catalysis which is consistent with the lattice QCD results. We discuss the influence of the magnetic field and chemical potential on the location of the critical end point (CEP). It is found that the magnetic field increases the critical μCEP of the CEP in the T−μ plane and the chemical potential increases the critical BCEP of the CEP in the T−B plane. Second, we discuss the equations of state (EOS) with nonzero magnetic field and chemical potential. We observe that the EOS near the phase transition temperature are nonmonotonic. Then we study the energy loss with a nonzero magnetic field and chemical potential. It is found that the drag force of the heavy quark and jet quenching parameter q^ show an enhancement near the phase transition temperature. The peak values of drag force and q^ are pushed toward lower temperature with increasing B or μ. This phenomenon is consistent with the phase transition temperature decrease with increasing B or μ in this holographic model. Moreover, we find that the heavy quark may lose more energy when it is perpendicular to a magnetic field, which is consistent with the results of the jet quenching parameter. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Nucleon electric and magnetic polarizabilities in holographic QCD

We analyze the resonance contributions to the generalized Baldin sum rule, namely the sum of the generalized electric and magnetic nucleon polarizabilities αE(Q2) and βM(Q2), within the holographic QCD model by Witten, Sakai, and Sugimoto (WSS). In particular, we account for the contributions from the first low-lying nucleon resonances with spin-1/2 and spin-3/2 and both parities. After having extrapolated the WSS model parameters to fit experimental data on baryonic observables, we compare our findings with alternative predictions in literature, finding a qualitative agreement with all of them. Moreover, at least for the proton case, where data are available, our results are in qualitative accordance with resonance contributions extracted from experimental nucleon-resonance helicity amplitudes. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Holographic entanglement properties in the QCD phase diagram from Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton models

In this study, we investigate the behavior of entanglement properties in the QCD phase diagram using holographic Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton models. We consider two representative holographic QCD models and examine various entanglement measures, including entanglement entropy, conditional mutual information, and the entanglement of purification. We find that the entanglement entropy obtained using the direct UV-cutoff renormalization method shows significant dependence on the specific model being used. However, the outcomes of other nondivergent entanglement measures, such as cutoff-independent entanglement entropy, conditional mutual information, and the entanglement of purification, exhibit congruence in our calculations. When we focus specifically on the temperature range below 300 MeV, we observe a similar behavior among the three entanglement measures. This may suggest that within this temperature range, the entanglement of QCD matter decreases with increasing temperature. Additionally, we observe distinct phase transition behaviors of entanglement properties at the critical end point and first-order phase transitions. This observation highlights the potential of entanglement properties as effective order parameters for QCD matter phase transitions. 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

Symmetry energy in holographic QCD

We study the symmetry energy (SE), an important quantity in nuclear physics, in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model and in a much simpler hard-wall model of holographic QCD. The SE is the energy contribution to the nucleus due to having an unequal number of neutrons and protons. Using a homogeneous Ansatz representing smeared instantons and quantizing their isospin, we extract the SE and the proton fraction assuming charge neutrality and beta-equilibrium, using quantization of the isospin zeromode. We also show the equivalence between our method adapted from solitons and the usual way of the isospin controlled by a chemical potential at the holographic boundary. We find that the SE can be well described in the WSS model if we allow for a larger ’t Hooft coupling and lower Kaluza-Klein scale than is normally used in phenomenological fits.

Nucleons and vector mesons in a confining holographic QCD model

We present a simple holographic QCD model that provides a unified description of vector mesons and nucleons in a confining background based on Einstein-dilaton gravity. For the confining background, we consider analytical solutions of the Einstein-dilaton equations where the dilaton is a quadratic function of the radial coordinate far from the boundary. We build actions for the 5D gauge field and the 5D Dirac field dual to the 4D flavor current and the 4D nucleon interpolator, respectively. In order to obtain asymptotically linear Regge trajectories, we impose for each sector the condition that the effective Schrödinger equation has a potential that grows quadratically in the radial coordinate far from the boundary. For the vector mesons, we show that this condition is automatically satisfied by a 5D Yang-Mills action minimally coupled to the metric and the dilaton. For the nucleons, we find that the mass term of the 5D Dirac action needs to be generalized to include couplings to the metric and the dilaton. Using Sturm-Liouville theory, we obtain a spectral decomposition for the hadronic correlators consistent with large Nc QCD. Our setup contains only three parameters: the mass scale associated with confinement, the 5D gauge coupling, and the 5D Dirac coupling. The last two are completely fixed by matching the correlators at high energies to perturbative QCD. We calculate masses and decay constants and compare our results against available experimental data. Our model can be thought of as a consistent embedding of soft wall models in Einstein-dilaton gravity. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Spin-1 glueballs in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model

We consider the vector and the pseudovector glueball in the top-down holographic model of large-Nc QCD of Witten and their decays into ordinary mesons described by the D8 brane construction due to Sakai and Sugimoto. At leading order, the relevant interactions are determined exclusively by the Chern-Simons action of the D8 branes and are thus rigidly connected to the chiral anomaly and the Wess-Zumino-Witten terms. As found in a previous study of the pseudovector glueball, which we revisit and complete, the resulting decay widths are surprisingly large, implying that both the pseudovector and the vector glueball are very broad resonances, with a conspicuous dominance of decays into a1ρ and K1(1400)K* in the case of the vector glueball. We also obtain a certain weak mixing of vector glueballs with ordinary vector mesons, but we conclude that it does not provide an explanation for the so-called ρπ puzzle in charmonium decays. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Role of Coulomb interaction in elastic pion-proton scattering from holography

Differential cross sections of the elastic pion-proton scattering are investigated at very small momentum transfer in a holographic QCD model, considering both the strong and Coulomb interaction in the Regge regime. The strong interaction is described by the Pomeron and Reggeon exchange, and the Coulomb interaction is characterized by the one photon exchange. The two interactions are linked through an interference term and we only need to determine a single adjustable parameter involved in this term. As to the parameters for the strong interaction, we can utilize the values determined in the previous studies. The differential cross sections can be predicted without any additional parameters, and it is shown that our predictions are consistent with the experimental data. We explicitly show the momentum transfer dependence for the interference effect. The energy dependence of the contribution ratios for each component is also discussed. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Heavy quarkonium spectral function in an anisotropic background

In this paper, we use a five-dimensional Einstein-dilaton-two-Maxwell holographic QCD model to investigate the dissociation effects of J/Ψ and ϒ(1S) states in an anisotropic medium by calculating their spectral functions. First, we present the holographic quarkonium masses at zero temperature via physics-informed neural networks. Then, at a finite temperature, we derive the spectral functions, representing heavy vector mesons as peaks, and observe that with increasing anisotropy, temperature, chemical potential, and warp factor, the peak height diminishes while its width expands, indicating an accelerated dissociation process. Additionally, the results indicate the anisotropy induces a stronger dissociation effect in the direction parallel to the polarization compared to the perpendicular, revealing the anisotropy’s directional influence. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Resonance contributions to nucleon spin structure in holographic QCD

We study polarized inelastic electron-nucleon scattering at low momentum transfer in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model of holographic QCD, focusing on resonance production contributions to the nucleon spin structure functions. Our analysis includes both spin 3/2 and spin 1/2 low-lying nucleon resonances with positive and negative parity. We determine, in turn, the helicity amplitudes for nucleon-resonance transitions and the resonance contributions to the neutron and proton generalized spin polarizabilities. Extrapolating the model parameters to realistic QCD data, our analysis, triggered by recent experimental results from Jefferson Lab, agrees with the observation that the ∆(1232) resonance gives the dominant contribution to the forward spin polarizabilities at low momentum transfer. The contribution is negative and tends to zero as the momentum transfer increases. As expected, the contribution of the ∆(1232) to the longitudinal-transverse polarizabilities is instead negligible. The latter, for both nucleons, turn out to be negative functions with zero asymptote. The holographic results, at least for the proton where enough data are available, are in qualitative agreement with the resonance contributions to the spin polarizabilities extracted from experimental data on the helicity amplitudes.

QGP probes from a dynamical holographic model of AdS/QCD

In this paper, we employ the gauge/gravity duality to study some features of the quark–gluon plasma. For this purpose, we implement a holographic QCD model constructed from an Einstein–Maxwell-dilaton gravity at finite temperature and finite chemical potential. The model captures both the confinement and deconfinement phases of QCD and we use it to study the effect of temperature and chemical potential on a heavy quark moving through the plasma. We calculate the drag force, Langevin diffusion coefficients and also the jet quenching parameter, and our results align with other holographic QCD models and the experimental data.

Effective field theory bootstrap, large-N χPT and holographic QCD

We review the effective field theory (EFT) bootstrap by formulating it as an infinite-dimensional semidefinite program (SDP), built from the crossing symmetric sum rules and the S-matrix primal ansatz. We apply the program to study the large-N chiral perturbation theory (χPT) and observe excellent convergence of EFT bounds between the dual (rule-out) and primal (rule-in) methods. This convergence aligns with the predictions of duality theory in SDP, enabling us to analyze the bound states and resonances in the ultra-violet (UV) spectrum. Furthermore, we incorporate the upper bound of unitarity to uniformly constrain the EFT space from the UV scale M using the primal method, thereby confirming the consistency of the large-N expansion. In the end, we translate the large-N χPT bounds to constrain the higher derivative corrections of holographic QCD models.

Complexity growth in a holographic QCD model* *Supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFA1604900). This work is also partly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (12275104, 11890711, 11890710, 11735007)

In this study, we utilize the complexity-action duality to study the evolution of complexity in a holographic QCD model at finite temperature and chemical potential. By inserting a fundamental string as a probe, we investigated the properties of complexity growth in this Einstein-Maxwell-scalar gravity system, which is affected by the string velocity, chemical potential, and temperature. Our results show that the complexity growth is maximized when the probe string is stationary, and it decreases as the velocity of the string increases. When the string approaches relativistic velocities, the complexity growth always increases monotonically with respect to the chemical potential. Furthermore, we find that the complexity growth can be used to identify phase transitions and crossovers in the model.

Neutron stars in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model

We utilize the top-down holographic QCD model, the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model, in a hybrid setting with the SLy4, soft chiral EFT and stiff chiral EFT equations of state to describe neutron stars with high precision. In particular, we employ a calibration that bootstraps the nuclear matter by fitting the Kaluza-Klein scale and the ’t Hooft coupling such that the physical saturation density and physical symmetry energy are achieved. We obtain static stable neutron star mass-radius data via the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov equations that yield sufficiently large maximal masses of neutron stars to be compatible with the recently observed PSR-J0952-0607 data as well as all other known radius and tidal deformation constraints.

Holographic description of elastic photon-proton and photon-photon scattering

We investigate the elastic photon-proton and photon-photon scattering in a holographic QCD model, focusing on the Regge regime. Considering contributions of the Pomeron and Reggeon exchange, the total and differential cross sections are calculated. While our model involves several parameters, by virtue of the universality of the Pomeron and Reggeon, for most of them the values determined in the preceding study on the proton-proton and proton-antiproton scattering can be employed. Once the two adjustable parameters, the Pomeron-photon and Reggeon-photon coupling constant, are determined with the experimental data of the total cross sections, predicting the both cross sections in a wide kinematic region, from the GeV to TeV scale, becomes possible. We show that the total cross section data can be well described within the model, and our predictions for the photon-proton differential cross section are consistent with the data.

Dynamical holographic QCD model for spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and confinement

Dynamical holographic QCD model for spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and confinement

Elastic proton–neutron and antiproton–neutron scattering in holographic QCD

The total and differential cross sections of the elastic proton–neutron and antiproton–neutron scattering are studied in a holographic QCD model, focusing on the Regge regime. Taking into account the Pomeron and Reggeon exchange, which are described by the Reggeized spin-2 glueball and vector meson propagator respectively, those cross sections are obtained. It is presented that the currently available experimental data of the total cross sections can be well described within the model. Once a single adjustable parameter is determined with the total cross section data, the differential cross sections can be calculated without any additional parameters. Although the available differential cross section data are limited, it is found that our predictions are consistent with those.

Mechanical structures inside proton with configurational entropy language

The structure of the proton remains a significant challenge within the field of Quantum Chromodynamics, with the origin of its spin and mass still lacking a satisfactory explanation. In this study, we utilize the gravitational form factor of the proton as the foundation for constructing the configurational entropy of the proton energy system. In our approach we choose the holographic QCD model for input thus obtaining a holographic version of the proton energy density. Employing this approach, we are able to determine key mechanical quantities such as the proton's mass radius and pressure distribution. Our analysis yields the root-mean-square mass radius of 〈rM2〉=0.720 fm and scalar radius of 〈rS2〉=1.024 fm for proton, which are found to be in excellent agreement with recent measurements from the Hall-C collaboration group at Jefferson Lab. Additionally, we examine the radial distribution of pressure and shear force within the proton. We provide a new mode for constraining holographic model parameters in the investigation of proton structures.

Anisotropic and frame dependent chaos of suspended strings from a dynamical holographic QCD model with magnetic field

We investigate both from a qualitative as well as quantitative perspective the emergence of chaos in the QCD confining string in a magnetic field from a holographic view-point. We use an earlier developed bottom-up solution of the Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton action that mimics QCD and its thermodynamics quite well. Surprisingly, our predictions depend on the used frame: the magnetic field tends to suppress the chaos in both perpendicular and parallel directions relative to the magnetic field in the string frame whilst in the Einstein frame, the chaos suppression only happens in the perpendicular direction, with an enhanced chaos along the magnetic field. The amount of suppression/enhancement in both frames does depend on the relative orientation of the string and magnetic field.

Hadron spectra and pion form factor in dynamical holographic QCD model with anomalous 5D mass of scalar field* *Supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (12235016, 12221005, 11725523, 11735007, 12275108), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB34030000, XDPB15), the start-up funding from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), and the

The simplest version of the dynamical holographic QCD model is described by adding the KKSS model action on a dilaton-graviton coupled background, in which the AdS metric is deformed by the gluon condensation and further deformed by the chiral condensation. In this framework, both the chiral symmetry breaking and linear confinement can be realized. The light-flavor hadron spectra and the pion form factor were investigated, but it was difficult to reconcile the light-flavor hadron spectra and pion form factor. By considering the anomalous 5-dimension mass correction of the scalar field from QCD running coupling, it is found that the light flavor hadron spectra and pion form factor can be described well simultaneously. In particular, the ground state and lower excitation states of the scalar, pseudo scalar, and axial vector meson spectra are improved. However, the vector meson spectra are not sensitive to the anomalous 5-dimension mass correction of the scalar field.