Hooft Determinant Research Articles

Axion effects in the stability of hybrid stars

We investigate the effects of including strong charge-parity (CP) violating effects through axion fields in the microscopic equation of state of massive hybrid neutron stars. We assume that their cores contain deconfined quark matter and include the effects of axions via an effective 't Hooft determinant interaction. The hadronic crusts are described using different approaches in order to make our results more general. We find that the presence of axions stabilizes massive hybrid neutron stars against gravitational collapse by weakening the deconfinement phase transition and bringing it to lower densities. This enables to reproduce hybrid neutron stars in agreement with modern astrophysical constraints.

Studying explicit U(1)A symmetry breaking in a hot and magnetized two flavor nonlocal NJL model constrained using lattice results

We study the two flavour non-local Nambu\textemdash Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model in the presence of a magnetic field and explore the chiral crossover in presence of a non-local form of the 't Hooft determinant term. Its coupling is governed by a dimensionless parameter $c$. This term is responsible for the explicit breaking of $U(1)_A$ symmetry. We have attempted a systematic analysis of the model parameters by fitting to self-consistent lattice QCD calculations. Three parameters of the model are fixed by $eB=0$ results from published lattice QCD on the chiral condensate, the pion decay constant ($F_\pi$), and the pion mass ($m_\pi$). The difference of the $u$ and $d$ quark condensates in the presence of a magnetic field ($eB$) is quite sensitive to $c$ and we fix $c$ using published lattice QCD results for this observable. We see no evidence that $c$ depends on $eB$. The crossover temperature decreases with increasing $eB$ only for condensate values at the lower end of the allowed values (as already seen in~\cite{Pagura:2016pwr}) and $F_\pi$ at the upper end of the allowed values. We further check our model predictions by calculating the topological susceptibility with the fitted $c$ values and comparing it with lattice results. Since the topological susceptibility is related to the extent of the $U(1)_A$ symmetry breaking, we find that it is sensitive to the value of $c$.

Phase diagram for strongly interacting matter in the presence of a magnetic field using the Polyakov–Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model with magnetic field dependent coupling strengths

We study the phase diagram for strongly interacting matter using the 't Hooft determinant extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with a Polyakov loop in the light and strange quark sectors (\emph{up}, \emph{down} and \emph{strange}) focusing on the effect of a magnetic field dependence of the coupling strengths of these interactions. This dependence was obtained so as to reproduce recent lattice QCD results for the magnetic field dependence of the quarks dynamical masses. A finite magnetic field is known to induce several additional first-order phase transition lines with the respective Critical End Points (CEP) in the temperature-quark chemical potential phase diagram when compared to the zero magnetic field case. A study of the magnetic field dependence in the range $eB=0-0.6~\mathrm{GeV}^2$ of the location of these CEPs reveals that the initial one as well as several of the new ones only survive up to a critical magnetic field. Only two remain in the upper limit of the studied magnetic field strength. A comparison of the results obtained with versions of the model with and without Polyakov loop is also done. We also found that the inclusion of the magnetic field dependence on the coupling strengths, while not changing the qualitative features of the phase diagram, affects the location of these CEPs. The comparison of results with and without a regularization cutoff in the medium part of the integrals does not show a significant change.

Exploring axial U(1) restoration in a modified 2+1 flavor Polyakov–quark–meson model

We report on the $U_{A}(1)$ symmetry restoration resulting due to temperature dependence of the coefficient c(T) for the Kobayashi-Maskawa-'t Hooft determinant (KMT) term in a modified 2+1 flavor Polyakov loop quark meson model having fermionic vacuum correction term (PQMVT).Temperature dependence of KMT coupling c(T) drives the non-strange condensate melting to significantly smaller temperatures in comparison to the constant c case.Further due to c(T), $m_{\eta^{\prime}}$ decreases from its vacuum value by 220 MeV near T=176 MeV after the chiral transition ($T_{c}^{\chi}=154.9$ MeV).This is similar to the $\eta^{\prime}$ in-medium mass drop of at least 200 MeV as reported by Csorgo and Vertesi in Ref (Phys Rev Lett 105:182301,2010; Phys Rev C 83:054903,2011), as an experimental signature of the effective restoration of $U_A(1)$ symmetry. The pseudoscalar mixing angle $\theta_p$ achieves anti-ideal mixing in the influence of c(T). The $\eta $ meson becomes light quark system ($ \eta_{NS} $) at T=176 MeV and changes its identity with $ \eta' $ meson which becomes strange quark system ($ \eta_{S} $). The degenerated temperature variations of $\sigma$, $\pi$ meson masses merges with the temperature variations of the masses of degenerated $a_{0}$, $\eta$ mesons near 275 MeV. It means that for c(T) when $m_{\sigma}=400$ MeV, the $U_{A}(1)$ restoration takes place at 1.75 $T_{c}^{\chi}$=275 MeV.

The strange critical endpoint and isentropic trajectories in an extended PNJL model with eight Quark interactions

In this work, we explore the possible existence of several critical endpoints in the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter using an extended PNJL model with 't Hooft determinant and eight quark interactions in the up, down and strange sectors. Besides, we also study the isentropic trajectories crossing both (light and strange) chiral phase transitions and around the critical endpoint in both the crossover and first-order transition regions.

Magnetic field dependent ’t Hooft determinant extended Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model

We study the implications of recent lattice QCD results for the magnetic field dependence of the quarks dynamical masses on the 't Hooft determinant extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio Model in the light and strange quark sectors (\emph{up}, \emph{down} and \emph{strange}). The parameter space is constrained at vanishing magnetic field, using the quarks dynamical masses and the meson spectra, whereas at non-vanishing magnetic field strength the dependence of the dynamical masses of two of the quark flavors is used to fit a magnetic field dependence on the model couplings, both the four-fermion Nambu--Jona-Lasinio interaction and the six-fermion 't Hooft flavor determinant. We found that this procedure reproduces the inverse magnetic catalysis, and the strength of the scalar coupling decreases with the magnetic field, while the strength of the six-fermion 't Hooft flavor determinant increases with the magnetic field.

Chiral symmetry breaking, color superconductivity, and equation of state for magnetized strange quark matter

We investigate the vacuum structure of dense quark matter in strong magnetic fields at finite temperature and densities in a 3 flavor Nambu Jona Lasinio (NJL) model including the Kobayashi-Maskawa-t'Hooft (KMT) determinant term using a variational method. The method uses an explicit structure for the `ground' state in terms of quark-antiquark condensates as well as diquark condensates. The mass gap equations and the superconducting gap equations are solved self consistently and are used to compute the thermodynamic potential along with the charge neutrality conditions. We also derive the equation of state for the charge neutral strange quark matter in the presence of strong magnetic fields which could be relevant for neutron stars.

Schwinger mechanism in the SU(3) Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model with an electric field

In this work we study the electrized quark matter under finite temperature and density conditions in the context of the SU(2) and SU(3) Nambu--Jona-Lasinio models. To this end, we evaluate the effective quark masses and the Schwinger quark-antiquark pair production rate. For the SU(3) NJL model we incorporate in the Lagrangian the 't Hooft determinant and we present a set of analytical expressions more convenient for numerical evaluations. We predict a decrease of the pseudocritical electric field with the increase of the temperature for both models and a more prominent production rate for the SU(3) model when compared to the SU(2).

Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model in a parallel electromagnetic field

We explore the features of the UA(1) and chiral symmetry breaking of the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model without the Kobayashi–Maskawa–'t Hooft determinant term in the presence of a parallel electromagnetic field. We show that the electromagnetic chiral anomaly can induce both finite neutral pion condensate and isospin-singlet pseudo-scalar η condensate and thus modifies the chiral symmetry breaking pattern. In order to characterize the strength of the UA(1) symmetry breaking, we evaluate the susceptibility associated with the UA(1) charge. The result shows that the susceptibility contributed from the chiral anomaly is consistent with the behavior of the corresponding η condensate. The spectra of the mesonic excitations are also studied.

Pion andη-meson mass splitting at the two-flavor chiral crossover

We study the splitting in the screening mass of pions and the $\eta$-meson across the chiral crossover. This splitting is determined by the 't Hooft determinant. We use results for the renormalisation group scale dependence of the 't Hooft determinant obtained within the functional renomalisation group in quenched QCD with two flavours. The scale dependence of the 't Hooft determinant is mapped to its temperature dependence with the help of a Polyakov-quark-meson model. As a result we obtain the temperature dependence of the splitting in the screening mass of pions and the $\eta$-meson.

Thermal properties and evolution of theUA(1)factor for2+1flavors

Thermal evolution of the axial anomaly is investigated in the system of the linear sigma model for $2+1$ flavors. We explore the functional form of the effective potential and the coefficient of the `t Hooft determinant term. It is found that the latter develops a non-trivial structure as a function of the chiral condensate and grows everywhere with respect to the temperature. This shows that mesonic fluctuations strengthen the axial anomaly at finite temperature and it does not get vanished at the critical point. The phenomenon has been found to have significance in the thermal properties of the mesonic spectra, especially concerning the $\eta-\eta'$ system.

Chiral phase transition in the soft-wall model of AdS/QCD

We investigate the chiral phase transition in the soft-wall model of AdS/QCD at zero chemical potential for two-flavor and three-flavor cases, respectively. We show that there is no spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the original soft-wall model. After detailed analysis, we find that in order to realize chiral symmetry breaking and restoration, both profiles for the scalar potential and the dilaton field are essential. The scalar potential determines the possible solution structure of the chiral condensate, except the mass term, it takes another quartic term for the two-flavor case, and for the three-flavor case, one has to take into account an extra cubic term due to the t'Hooft determinant interaction. The profile of the dilaton field reflects the gluodynamics, which is negative at a certain ultraviolet scale and approaches positive quadratic behavior at far infrared region. With this set-up, the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum and its restoration at finite temperature can be realized perfectly. In the two-flavor case, it gives a second order chiral phase transition in the chiral limit, while the transition turns to be a crossover for any finite quark mass. In the case of three-flavor, the phase transition becomes a first order one in the chiral limit, while above sufficient large quark mass it turns to be a crossover again. This scenario agrees exactly with the current understanding on chiral phase transition from lattice QCD and other effective model studies.

Determination ofU(1)Arestoration from pion anda0-meson screening masses: Toward the chiral regime

We incorporate the effective restoration of $U(1)_{\rm A}$ symmetry in the 2+1 flavor entanglement Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (EPNJL) model by introducing a temperature-dependent strength $K(T)$ to the Kobayashi-Maskawa-'t Hooft (KMT) determinant interaction. $T$ dependence of $K(T)$ is well determined from pion and $a_0$-meson screening masses obtained by lattice QCD (LQCD) simulations with improved p4 staggered fermions. The strength is strongly suppressed in the vicinity of the pseudocritical temperature of chiral transition. The EPNJL model with the $K(T)$ well reproduces meson susceptibilities calculated by LQCD with domain-wall fermions. The model shows that the chiral transition is second order at the "light-quark chiral-limit" point where the light quark mass is zero and the strange quark mass is fixed at the physical value. This indicates that there exists a tricritical point. Hence the location is estimated.

CPviolation and chiral symmetry breaking in hot and dense quark matter in the presence of a magnetic field

We investigate chiral symmetry breaking and strong CP violation effects on the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter in presence of a constant magnetic field. The effect of magnetic field and strong CP violating term on the phase structure at finite temperature and density is studied within a three flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model including the Kobayashi-Maskawa-t'Hooft (KMT) determinant term. This is investigated using an explicit variational ansatz for ground state with quark anti-quark pairs leading to condensates both in scalar and pseudoscalar channels. Magnetic field enhances the condensate in both the channels. Inverse magnetic catalysis for CP transition at finite chemical potential is seen for zero temperature and for small magnetic fields.

Non-uniform Phases in a Three-flavour 't Hooft Extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio Model

The possible existence of non-uniform phases in cold dense quark matter in the light quark sector ($u$, $d$ and $s$) is addressed using the Nambu-Jona--Lasinio Model extended to include flavour-mixing 't Hooft determinant. The effect of changes in the coupling strengths of the model is discussed. It is seen that the inclusion of the strange sector catalyses the appearance of these non-uniform phases extending the domain for their appearance.

StrongCPviolation and chiral symmetry breaking in hot and dense quark matter

We investigate chiral symmetry breaking and strong CP violation effects in the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. We demonstrate the effect of strong CP violating terms on the phase structure at finite temperature and densities in a 3-flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model including the Kobayashi-Maskawa-t'Hooft (KMT) determinant term. This is investigated using an explicit structure for the ground state in terms of quark-antiquark condensates for both in the scalar and the pseudoscalar channels. CP restoring transition with temperature at zero baryon density is found to be a second order transition at $\theta = \pi$ while the same at finite chemical potential and small temperature turns out to be a first order transition. Within the model, the tri-critical point turns out to be $(T_c,\mu_c)\simeq(273,94)$ MeV at $\theta = \pi$ for such a transition.

Investigation of meson masses for real and imaginary chemical potential using the three-flavor PNJL model

We investigate chemical-potential (μ) and temperature (T) dependence of scalar and pseudo-scalar meson masses for both real and imaginary μ, using the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model with three-flavor quarks. A three-flavor phase diagram is drawn in μ2–T plane where positive (negative) μ2 corresponds to positive (imaginary) μ. A critical surface is plotted as a function of light- and strange-quark current mass and μ2. We show that μ-dependence of the six-quark Kobayashi–Maskawa–'t Hooft (KMT) determinant interaction originated in UA(1) anomaly can be determined from lattice QCD data on η′ meson mass around μ=0 and μ=iπT/3 with T slightly above the critical temperature at μ=0 where the chiral symmetry is restored at μ=0 but broken at μ=iπT/3, if it is measured in future.

Hybrid Neutron Stars Based on a Modified PNJL Model

We discuss a three-flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) type quantum field theoretical approach to the quark matter equation of state (EoS) with scalar diquark condensate, isoscalar vector mean field and Kobayashi-Maskawa-'t Hooft (KMT) determinant interaction. While often the diquark and vector meson couplings are considered as free parameters, we will fix them here to their values according to the Fierz transformation of a one-gluon exchange interaction. In order to estimate the effect of a possible change in the vacuum pressure of the gluon sector at finite baryon density we exploit a recent modification of the Polyakov-loop NJL (mPNJL) model which introduces a parametric density dependence of the Polyakov-loop potential also at T=0, thus being relevant for compact star physics. We use a Dirac-Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (DBHF) EoS for the hadronic matter phase and discuss results for mass-radius relationships following from a solution of the TOV equations for such a hybrid EoS in the context of observational constraints from selected objects.

How strange are compact star interiors?

We discuss a Nambu–Jona–Lasinio (NJL)-type quantum field theoretical approach to the quark matter equation of state with color superconductivity and construct hybrid star models on this basis. It has recently been demonstrated that with increasing baryon density, the different quark flavors may occur sequentially, starting with down-quarks only, before the second light quark flavor and at highest densities the strange quark flavor also appears. We find that color superconducting phases are favorable over non-superconducting ones, which entails consequences for thermodynamic and transport properties of hybrid star matter. In particular, for NJL-type models no strange quark matter phases can occur in compact star interiors due to mechanical instability against gravitational collapse, unless a sufficiently strong flavor mixing as provided by the Kobayashi–Maskawa–'t Hooft determinant interaction is present in the model. We discuss observational data on mass–radius relationships of compact stars which can put constraints on the properties of the dense matter equation of state.

Spontaneous CP violation in the NJL model at θ = π

As is well-known, spontaneous CP-violation in the strong interaction is possible at θ = π, which is commonly referred to as Dashen's phenomenon. This phenomenon has been studied extensively using chiral Lagrangians. Here the two-flavor NJL model at θ = π is discussed. It turns out that the occurrence of spontaneous CP-violation depends on the strength of the 't Hooft determinant interaction, which describes the effect of instanton interactions. The dependence of the phase structure, and in particular of the CP-violating phase, on the quark masses, temperature, baryon and isospin chemical potential is examined in detail. The latter dependence shows a modification of the charged pion condensed phase first discussed by Son and Stephanov.