Baryon Number Research Articles

Chiral transition and the chiral charge density of the hot and dense QCD matter.

We study the chirally imbalanced hot and dense strongly interacting matter by means of the Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSEs). The chiral phase diagram is studied in the presence of chiral chemical potential μ5. The chiral quark condensate leftlangle overline{psi}psi rightrangle is obtained with the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis (CJT) effective action in concert with the Rainbow truncation. Catalysis effect of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking (DCSB) by μ5 is observed. We examine with two popular gluon models and consistency is found within the DSE approach, as well as in comparison with lattice QCD. The critical end point (CEP) location (μE, TE ) shifts toward larger TE but constant μE as μ5 increases. A technique is then introduced to compute the chiral charge density n5 from the fully dressed quark propagator. We find the n5 generally increases with temperature T , quark number chemical potential μ and μ5. Since the chiral magnetic effect (CME) is typically investigated with peripheral collisions, we also investigate the finite size effect on n5 and find an increase in n5 with smaller system size.

Supercritically charged objects and electron-positron pair creation

We investigate the stability and $e^+e^-$ pair creation of supercritically charged superheavy nuclei, $ud$QM nuggets, strangelets, and strangeon nuggets based on Thomas-Fermi approximation. The model parameters are fixed by reproducing their masses and charge properties reported in earlier publications. It is found that $ud$QM nuggets, strangelets, and strangeon nuggets may be more stable than ${}^{56}$Fe at $A\gtrsim 315$, $5\times10^4$, and $1.2\times10^8$, respectively. For those stable against neutron emission, the most massive superheavy element has a baryon number $\sim$965, while $ud$QM nuggets, strangelets, and strangeon nuggets need to have baryon numbers larger than $39$, 433, and $2.7\times10^5$. The $e^+e^-$ pair creation will inevitably start for superheavy nuclei with charge numbers $Z\geq177$, $ud$QM nuggets with $Z\geq163$, strangelets with $Z\geq 192$, and strangeon nuggets with $Z\geq 212$. A universal relation $Q/R_e = \left(m_e - \bar{\mu}_e\right)/\alpha$ is obtained at a given electron chemical potential $\bar{\mu}_e$, where $Q$ is the total charge and $R_e$ the radius of electron cloud. This predicts the maximum charge number by taking $\bar{\mu}_e=-m_e$. For supercritically charged objects with $\bar{\mu}_e<-m_e$, the decay rate for $e^+e^-$ pair production is estimated based on the JWKB approximation. It is found that most positrons are emitted at $t\lesssim 10^{-15}$ s, while a long lasting positron emission is observed for large objects with $R\gtrsim 1000$ fm. The emission and annihilation of positrons from supercritically charged objects may be partially responsible for the short $\gamma$-ray burst during the merger of binary compact stars, the 511 keV continuum emission, as well as the narrow faint emission lines in X-ray spectra from galaxies and galaxy clusters.

Connecting the electroweak sphaleron with gravitational waves

We present the relation between the sphaleron energy and the gravitational wave signals from a first order electroweak phase transition. The crucial ingredient is the scaling law between the sphaleron energy at the temperature of the phase transition and that at zero temperature. We estimate the baryon number preservation criterion, and observe that for a sufficiently strong phase transition, it is possible to probe the electroweak sphaleron using measurements of future space-based gravitational wave detectors.

Hawking radiation from strange quark nuggets, relics of the QCD phase transition

It is entirely plausible that during the primordial quark-hadron transition, microseconds after the Big Bang, the universe may experience supercooling accompanied by mini inflation leading to a first-order phase transition from quarks to hadrons. The relics, in the form of quark nuggets expected to consist of Strange Quark Matter, with a baryon number beyond a critical value will survive. It is conjectured that color confinement turns the physical vacuum to an event horizon for quarks and gluons. The horizon can be crossed only by quantum tunnelling. The process just mentioned is the QCD counterpart of Hawking radiation from gravitational black holes. Thus, when the Hawking temperature of the quark nuggets gets turned off, tunnelling will stop and the nuggets will survive forever. The baryon number and the mass of these nuggets are derived using this theoretical format. The results agree well with the prediction using other phenomenological models. Further, the variation of Hawking temperature as a function of baryon number and mass of the nugget mimicks chiral phase transition, somewhat similar to the QCD phase transition just described. Finally the strange quark nuggets may well be the candidates of baryonic dark matter.

Quark-diquark string tension, excited baryonic resonances and thermal fluctuations

We study the baryonic fluctuations from second to eighth order involving electric charge, baryon number and strangeness below the quark-gluon plasma crossover and numerically known from lattice QCD calculations. By considering a particular realization of the Hadron Resonance Gas model, we provide evidence on the dominant role of quark-diquark degrees of freedom to describe excited baryonic resonances. After proving by means of suitable Polyakov loop correlators that the quark-diquark and the quark-antiquark forces coincide, , we find that the corresponding susceptibilities can be saturated with excited baryonic states in a quark-diquark model picture.

A little theory of everything, with heavy neutral leptons

Recently a new model of “Affleck-Dine inflation” was presented, that produces the baryon asymmetry from a complex inflaton carrying baryon number, while being consistent with constraints from the cosmic microwave background. We adapt this model such that the inflaton carries lepton number, and communicates the lepton asymmetry to the standard model baryons via quasi-Dirac heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) and sphalerons. One of these HNLs, with mass underset{sim }{<} 4.5 GeV, can be (partially) asymmetric dark matter (DM), whose asymmetry is determined by that of the baryons. Its stability is directly related to the vanishing of the lightest neutrino mass. Neutrino masses are generated by integrating out heavy sterile neutrinos whose mass is above the inflation scale. The model provides an economical origin for all of the major ingredients missing from the standard model: inflation, baryogenesis, neutrino masses, and dark matter. The HNLs can be probed in fixed-target experiments like SHiP, possibly manifesting N-overline{N} oscillations. A light singlet scalar, needed for depleting the DM symmetric component, can be discovered in beam dump experiments and searches for rare decays, possibly explaining anomalous events recently observed by the KOTO collaboration. The DM HNL is strongly constrained by direct searches, and could have a cosmologically interesting self-interaction cross section.

DUNE Prospect for Leptophobic Dark Matter

Highly energetic proton/electron beam fixed-target experiments extend an opportunity to probe the sub-GeV dark matter and associated interactions. In this work, we have explored the sensitivity of DUNE (Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment) for sub-GeV leptophobic dark matter, i.e., this dark matter barely couples with the leptons. Baryon number gauge theory can predict the existence of leptophobic cold dark matter particle candidates. In our work, the dark matter candidate is considered to be scalar whose mass is defined by the symmetry breaking of new baryonic gauge group U 1 B . In this scenario, a light scalar dark matter couples with the standard model candidates via vector boson mediator V B which belongs to the baryonic gauge group U 1 B . This leptophobic dark matter dominantly couples to the quarks. Under this scenario, new parameter space for α B is explored by DUNE for leptophobic dark matter candidates. This new parameter space allowed α B to get a lower value than the present exiting constraint value of α B , i.e., 1 0 − 6 .

Baryon number fluctuations induced by hadronic interactions at low temperature and large chemical potential

We investigate the density fluctuations induced by hadronic interactions at low temperatures and large chemical potentials after the hadronization of quark-gluon plasma~(QGP). We analyze the structures of net-baryon number kurtosis and skewness and elaborate on their relations with the nuclear liquid-gas~(LG) phase transition and hadronic interactions above the critical temperature. Combining with the relevant experimental projects at RHIC/NICA/FAIR/J-PARC/HIAF with collision energies from $200\,$GeV to $1.8\,$GeV, we propose a double-peak structure of kurtosis (skewness) as a function of collision energy, which can be taken to identify the chiral phase transition and the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. In particular, the fluctuation distributions at low temperatures provide a new method to explore hadronic interactions and nuclear liquid-gas transition.

Dark Matter Candidates with Dark Energy Interiors Determined by Energy Conditions

We outline the basic properties of regular black holes, their remnants and self-gravitating solitons G-lumps with the de Sitter and phantom interiors, which can be considered as heavy dark matter (DM) candidates generically related to a dark energy (DE). They are specified by the condition T t t = T r r and described by regular solutions of the Kerr-Shild class. Solutions for spinning objects can be obtained from spherical solutions by the Newman-Janis algorithm. Basic feature of all spinning objects is the existence of the equatorial de Sitter vacuum disk in their deep interiors. Energy conditions distinguish two types of their interiors, preserving or violating the weak energy condition dependently on violation or satisfaction of the energy dominance condition for original spherical solutions. For the 2-nd type the weak energy condition is violated and the interior contains the phantom energy confined by an additional de Sitter vacuum surface. For spinning solitons G-lumps a phantom energy is not screened by horizons and influences their observational signatures, providing a source of information about the scale and properties of a phantom energy. Regular BH remnants and G-lumps can form graviatoms binding electrically charged particles. Their observational signature is the electromagnetic radiation with the frequencies depending on the energy scale of the interior de Sitter vacuum within the range available for observations. A nontrivial observational signature of all DM candidates with de Sitter interiors predicted by analysis of dynamical equations is the induced proton decay in an underground detector like IceCUBE, due to non-conservation of baryon and lepton numbers in their GUT scale false vacuum interiors.

Formation of Conserved Charge at the de Sitter Space

The article considers a new mechanism of charge accumulation in the early Universe in theories with compact extra dimensions. The relaxation processes in the extra space metric that take place during its formation lead to the establishment of symmetrical extra space configuration. As a result, the initial accumulation of the number associated with the symmetry occurs. We demonstrate this mechanism using a simple example of a two-dimensional apple-like extra space metric with U ( 1 ) -symmetry. The conceptual idea of the mechanism can be used to develop a model for the production of the baryon or lepton number in the early Universe.

Measurement of the (anti-)3He elliptic flow in Pb–Pb collisions at [formula omitted

The elliptic flow (v2) of (anti-)3He is measured in Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=5.02TeV in the transverse-momentum (pT) range of 2–6 GeV/c for the centrality classes 0–20%, 20–40%, and 40–60% using the event-plane method. This measurement is compared to that of pions, kaons, and protons at the same center-of-mass energy. A clear mass ordering is observed at low pT, as expected from relativistic hydrodynamics. The violation of the scaling of v2 with the number of constituent quarks at low pT, already observed for identified hadrons and deuterons at LHC energies, is confirmed also for (anti-)3He. The elliptic flow of (anti-)3He is underestimated by the Blast-Wave model and overestimated by a simple coalescence approach based on nucleon scaling. The elliptic flow of (anti-)3He measured in the centrality classes 0–20% and 20–40% is well described by a more sophisticated coalescence model where the phase-space distributions of protons and neutrons are generated using the iEBE-VISHNU hybrid model with AMPT initial conditions.

Diffusion processes involving multiple conserved charges: A study from kinetic theory and implications to the fluid-dynamical modeling of heavy ion collisions

The bulk nuclear matter produced in heavy ion collisions carries a multitude of conserved quantum numbers: electric charge, baryon number, and strangeness. Therefore, the diffusion processes associated to these conserved charges cannot occur independently and must be described in terms of a set of coupled diffusion equations. This physics is implemented by replacing the traditional diffusion coefficients for each conserved charge by a diffusion coefficient matrix, which quantifies the coupling between the conserved quantum numbers. The diagonal coefficients of this matrix are the usual charge diffusion coefficients, while the off-diagonal entries describe the diffusive coupling of the charge currents. In this paper, we show how to calculate this diffusion coefficient matrix from kinetic theory and provide results for a hadron resonance gas and a gas of partons. We further find that the off-diagonal entries can reach similar magnitudes compared to the diagonal entries. In order to provide some insight on the influence that the coupling between the net charge diffusion currents can have on heavy ion observables, we present first results for the diffusive evolution of a hadronic system in a simple (1+1)D-fluid dynamics approach, and study different configurations of the diffusion matrix.

Dense two-color QCD towards continuum and chiral limits

We study two-color QCD with two flavors of Wilson fermion as a function of quark chemical potential mu and temperature T, for two different lattice spacings and two different quark masses. We find that the quarkyonic region, where the behaviour of the quark number density and the diquark condensate are described by a Fermi sphere of almost free quarks distorted by a BCS gap, extends to larger chemical potentials with decreasing lattice spacing or quark mass. In both cases, the quark number density also approaches its non-interacting value. The pressure at low temperature is found to approach the Stefan-Boltzmann limit from below.

Q-ball decay through A-term in the gauge-mediated SUSY breaking scenario

Q-balls are non-topological solitons whose classical stability is ensured by a global U(1) charge. In particular, Q-balls are produced in the framework of the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis where U(1) charge is the baryon number. Since some type of Q-balls is stable against quantum decay into nucleons, it can work as the dark matter. When the dark matter Q-balls are captured into the neutron star, they absorb the surrounding neutrons and grow to consume all the neutrons, which leads to a stringent constraint on the Q-ball dark matter. However, the Q-ball growth stops due to the U(1) breaking A-term. We revisit the constraint by the neutron star for the gauge-mediation type and the new type Q-ball, and find the allowed parameter space, in which Q-balls work as the dark matter.

Fluctuations, criticality and nonequilibrium effect of the QCD matter

The multiplicity distributions of net-baryon number fluctuation in the first-order chiral phase transition associated with the nonequlibrium effect are investigated within the improved Polyakov–Nambu–Jona–Lasinio model. Compared with the idealized first-order transition in equilibrium, the calculation indicates that the density fluctuations in the metastable and unstable regions are more violent, which possibly affects the statistical distributions of density fluctuation in later stage of an expanding system. Signals induced by the first-order phase transition and those from the nonequilibrium effect are discussed in detail, which could be exploited to identify the first-order phase transition. Besides, the critical exponents of the thermodynamic quantities at both the critical end point and spinodal boundary are investigated.

Electromagnetic effects on the stability of anisotropic cylinder

This paper is devoted to analyzing the stability of charged anisotropic cylinder using the radial perturbation scheme. For this purpose, we consider the non-static cylindrically symmetric self-gravitating system and apply both Eulerian as well as Lagrangian approaches to establish a linearized perturbed form of dynamical equations. The conservation of baryon number is used to evaluate perturbed radial pressure in terms of an adiabatic index. A variational principle is developed to find a characteristic frequency which helps to examine the combined effect of charge and anisotropy on the stability of gaseous star. It is found that dynamical instability can be prevented until the radius of cylinder exceeds the limit [Formula: see text] and anisotropy increases the instability up to the limiting value of [Formula: see text]. Finally, we conclude that the system becomes more stable by increasing the definite amount of charge gradually.

Beam energy dependence of cumulants of the net-baryon, net-charge, and deuteron multiplicity distributions in Au + Au collisions at sNN=3.0–5.0 GeV

Within the ultra-relativistic quantum molecular dynamics (UrQMD) model, in which the Lorentz-covariant treatment of nuclear mean-field potential is considered, the fluctuations of net-baryon, net-charge and deuterons multiplicity distributions in Au+Au head-on collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=3.0-5.0$ GeV are calculated. The results show that the nuclear mean-field potential can significantly enhance the magnitude of baryon number fluctuations in narrow rapidity windows, and this enhancement rapidly weakens with increasing beam energy. However, for proton and net-charge number fluctuations, the mean-field effects are less noticeable than that for baryon number. In addition, for net-charge number fluctuations, the negative binomial distribution agrees well with the calculated results at mid-pseudorapidity window. Finally, the event-by-event fluctuations of deuteron number in the coalescence production picture are calculated as well, it is found that its cumulant ratios decrease linearly with increasing the average multiplicity of deuterons per event, i.e., increase with increasing beam energy.

Linking number of vortices as baryon number

We show that the topological degree of a Skyrmion field is the same as the Hopf charge of the field under the Hopf map and thus equals the linking number of the preimages of two points on the 2-sphere under the Hopf map. We further interpret two particular points on the 2-sphere as vortex zeros and the linking of these zero lines follows from the latter theorem. Finally we conjecture that the topological degree of the Skyrmion can be interpreted as the product of winding numbers of vortices corresponding to the zero lines, summing over clusters of vortices.

Effects of resonance weak decay and hadronic rescattering on the proton number fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at sNN=5GeV from a microscopic hadronic transport (JAM) model

Proton number fluctuation is sensitive observable to search for the QCD critical point in heavy-ion collisions. In this paper, we studied rapidity acceptance dependence of the proton cumulants and correlation functions in most central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5$ GeV from a microscopic hadronic transport model (JAM). At mid-rapidity, we found the effects of resonance weak decays and hadronic re-scattering on the proton cumulants and correlation functions are small, but those effects get larger when further increasing the rapidity acceptance. On the other hand, we found the baryon number conservation is a dominant background effect on the rapidity acceptance dependence of proton number fluctuations. It leads to a strong suppression of cumulants and cumulant ratios, as well as the negative proton correlation functions. We also studied those two effects on the energy dependence of cumulant ratios of net-proton distributions in most central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5-200$ GeV from JAM model. This work can serve as a non-critical baseline for future QCD critical point search in heavy-ion collisions at high baryon density region.

Dark CP violation and gauged lepton or baryon number for electroweak baryogenesis

We explore the generation of the baryon asymmetry in an extension of the Standard Model where the lepton number is promoted to a $U(1)_\ell$ gauge symmetry with an associated $Z^\prime$ gauge boson. This is based on a novel electroweak baryogenesis mechanism first proposed by us in Ref. \cite{Carena:2018cjh}. Extra fermionic degrees of freedom - including a fermionic dark matter $\chi$ - are introduced in the dark sector for anomaly cancellation. Lepton number is spontaneously broken at high scale and the effective theory, containing the Standard Model, the $Z^\prime$, the fermionic dark matter, and an additional complex scalar field $S$, violates CP in the dark sector. The complex scalar field couples to the Higgs portal and is essential in enabling a strong first order phase transition. Dark CP violation is diffused in front of the bubble walls and creates a chiral asymmetry for $\chi$, which in turn creates a chemical potential for the Standard Model leptons. Weak sphalerons are then in charge of transforming the net lepton charge asymmetry into net baryon number. We explore the model phenomenology related to the leptophilic $Z^\prime$, the dark matter candidate, the Higgs boson and the additional scalar, as well as implications for electric dipole moments. We also discuss the case when baryon number $U(1)_B$ is promoted to a gauge symmetry, and discuss electroweak baryogenesis and its corresponding phenomenology.