Quark Matter 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

Constraining the Onset Density for the QCD Phase Transition with the Neutrino Signal from Core-collapse Supernovae

The occurrence of a first-order hadron–quark matter phase transition at high baryon densities is investigated in astrophysical simulations of core-collapse supernovae, to decipher yet incompletely understood properties of the dense matter equation of state (EOS) using neutrinos from such cosmic events. It is found that the emission of a nonstandard second neutrino burst, dominated by electron antineutrinos, is not only a measurable signal for the appearance of deconfined quark matter but also reveals information about the state of matter at extreme conditions encountered at the supernova (SN) interior. To this end, a large set of spherically symmetric SN models is investigated, studying the dependence on the EOS and the stellar progenitor. General relativistic neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics is employed featuring three-flavor Boltzmann neutrino transport and a microscopic hadron-quark hybrid matter EOS class. Therefore, the DD2 relativistic mean-field hadronic model is employed, and several variations of it, and the string-flip model for the description of deconfined quark matter. The resulting hybrid model covers a representative range of onset densities for the phase transition and latent heats. This facilitates the direct connection between intrinsic signatures of the neutrino signal and properties of the EOS. In particular, a set of linear relations has been found empirically. These potentially provide a constraint for the onset density of a possible QCD phase transition from the future neutrino observation of the next galactic core-collapse SN, if a millisecond electron anti-neutrino burst is present around or less than 1 s.

Dense and Hot QCD at Strong Coupling

We present a novel framework for the equation of state of dense and hot quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which focuses on the region of the phase diagram relevant for neutron star mergers and core-collapse supernovae. The model combines predictions from the gauge/gravity duality with input from lattice field theory, QCD perturbation theory, chiral effective theory, and statistical modeling. It is therefore, by construction, in good agreement with theoretical constraints both at low and high densities and temperatures. The main ingredients of our setup are the nonperturbative V-QCD model based on the gauge/gravity duality, a van der Waals model for nucleon liquid, and the DD2 version of the Hempel-Schaffner-Bielich statistical model of nuclear matter. By consistently combining these models, we also obtain a description for the nuclear to quark matter phase transition and its critical end point. The parameter dependence of the model is represented by three (soft, intermediate, and stiff) variants of the equation of state, all of which agree with observational constraints from neutron stars and their mergers. We discuss resulting constraints for the equation of state, predictions for neutron stars, and the location of the critical point.3 MoreReceived 18 January 2022Revised 8 June 2022Accepted 29 August 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.12.041012Published 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 AreasEquations of state of nuclear matterGauge-gravity dualitiesNuclear matter in neutron starsQCD phase transitionsQuantum chromodynamicsParticles & FieldsGravitation, Cosmology & AstrophysicsNuclear Physics

Isospin effect on quark matter instabilities

We have studied the mechanical and chemical instabilities as well as the liquid-gas-like phase transition in isospin asymmetric quark matter based on the NJL and the pNJL model. Areas of the mechanical instability region and the liquid-gas coexistence region are seen to be enlarged with a larger quark matter symmetry energy or in the presence of strange quarks. Our study shows that the light cluster yield ratio observed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions may not be affected much by the uncertainties of the isospin effect, and favors a smooth hadron-quark phase transition in compact stars as well as their mergers.

Influence of magnetic fields on the stability and the phase transition of quark matter in the Nambu–Jona–Lasinio model

In the presence of the external magnetic fields, we investigate the stability of quark matter as well as the phase transition in the framework of two flavor Nambu–Jona–Lasinio model. The investigation focuses on the magnetic effects with the fixed coupling constant and the running coupling constant G(B, T) depending on both magnetic field and temperature. The dynamical quark mass can be increased by strong magnetic fields and be reduced by the running coupling constant G(B, T). The baryon number density is also increased by strong magnetic fields but is weakly influenced by the running coupling constant G(B, T). Importantly, the stability can be enhanced by the magnetic fields of a proper strength. While it will be reduced by the much weaker or much stronger magnetic fields. The magnetic-field-dependence in the running coupling constant has slight effect on the stability. Finally, the phase transition and the location of critical end point for both coupling cases are numerically shown.

Hadron–Quark Phase Transition in the SU (3) Local Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL) Model with Vector Interaction

We study the hadron–quark hybrid equation of state (EOS) of compact-star matter. The Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL) local SU (3) model with vector-type interaction is used to describe the quark matter phase, while the relativistic mean field (RMF) theory with the scalar-isovector δ-meson effective field is adopted to describe the hadronic matter phase. It is shown that the larger the vector coupling constant GV, the lower the threshold density for the appearance of strange quarks. For a sufficiently small value of the vector coupling constant, the functions of the mass dependence on the baryonic chemical potential have regions of ambiguity that lead to a phase transition in nonstrange quark matter with an abrupt change in the baryon number density. We show that within the framework of the NJL model, the hypothesis on the absolute stability of strange quark matter is not realized. In order to describe the phase transition from hadronic matter to quark matter, Maxwell’s construction is applied. It is shown that the greater the vector coupling, the greater the stiffness of the EOS for quark matter and the phase transition pressure. Our results indicate that the infinitesimal core of the quark phase, formed in the center of the neutron star, is stable.

Zero-mode contribution and quantized first-order apparent phase transition in a droplet quark matter

The finite size effect on hadron physics and quark matter has attracted much interest for more than three decades, normally both the periodic (with zero-momentum mode) and the anti-periodic (without zero-momentum mode) spatial boundary condition are applied for fermions. By comparing the thermodynamical potential, it is found that if there is no other physical constraint, the droplet quark matter is always more stable when the periodic spatial boundary condition is applied, and the catalysis of chiral symmetry breaking is observed with the decrease of the system size, while the pions excited from the droplet vacuum keep as pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons. Furthermore, it is found that the zero-momentum mode contribution brings significant change of the chiral apparent phase transition in a droplet of cold dense quark matter: the 1st-order chiral apparent phase transition becomes quantized, i.e., the 1st-order apparent phase transition is completed in two steps, which is a brand-new quantum phenomena. It is expected that the catalysis of chiral symmetry breaking and the quantized 1st-order apparent phase transition are common features for fermionic systems with quantized momentum spectrum with zero-mode contribution, which also show up in quark matter under magnetic field.

Deconfinement and chiral phase transitions in quark matter with a strong electric field

The deconfinement and chiral phase transitions are studied in the context of the electrized quark matter at finite temperature in the two-flavor Polyakov-Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. Using the mean field approximation and an electric field independet regularization we show that the effect of temperature and/or electric fields is to partially restore the chiral symmetry. The deconfinement phase transition is slightly affected by the magnitude of the electric field. To this end we show how the effective quark masses and the expectation value of the Polyakov Loop are affected by the electric fields at finite temperatures. As a very interesting result, the pseudocritical temperatures for chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement decrease as we increase the magnitude of the electric fields, however, both start to increase after some critical value of the electric field.

Lattice Simulation Study of the Properties of Cold Quark Matter with a Nonzero Isospin Density

The lattice simulation study of quantum chromodynamics with a nonzero isospin density has been performed. The nonzero isospin density has been introduced by means of the isospin chemical potential μI. The simulation has been performed with dynamic u, d, and s quarks in the Kogut-Susskind formulation. The static potential of a quark-antiquark pair for various values of the isospin chemical potential has been extracted from the calculated Wilson loops. The dependence of the string tension on the isospin chemical potential has been obtained using data for the interaction potential. The results show that the string tension decreases with an increase in μI and vanishes near μI ≃ 1200 MeV. Thus, the confinement/deconfinement phase transition in cold quark matter with the nonzero isospin density has been observed for the first time.

Quark matter under rotation in the NJL model with vector interaction

We study the chiral phase transition of quark matter under rotation in two-flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. It is found that, in the rotating frame, the angular velocity plays the similar role as the baryon chemical potential and suppresses the chiral condensate, thus the chiral phase transition shows a critical end point not only in the temperature-chemical potential $T-\mu$ plane, but also in the temperature-angular momentum $T-\omega$ plane. One interesting observation is that in the $T-\mu$ plane, the presence of the angular momentum only shifts down the critical temperature $T^E$ of the CEP and does not shift the critical chemical potential $\mu^E$, and in the $T-\omega$ plane, the increase of the chemical potential only shift down the critical temperature $T^E$ and does not change the critical angular momentum $\omega^E$. The phase structure in the $T-\mu$ plane is sensitive to the coupling strength in the vector channel, while the phase structure in $T-\omega$ plane is not. It is also observed that the rotating angular velocity suppresses the kurtosis of the baryon number fluctuations, while it enhances the pressure density, energy density, the specific heat and the sound velocity.

Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model with proper time regularization in a finite volume

Based on the two flavor Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model with a proper time regularization, we used stationary wave condition (SWC) for the first time to study the influence of the finite volume effects on the chiral phase transition of quark matter at finite temperature. It is found that when the cubic volume size [Formula: see text] is larger than [Formula: see text] fm, the chiral quark condensate is indistinguishable from that at [Formula: see text]. Here, it should be noted that 500 fm is far greater than the size of QGP produced at laboratory and the lattice QCD simulation space size. It is also much larger than the previous limit size [Formula: see text] fm estimated by the commonly used anti-periodic boundary condition (APBC). We also found that when the space size [Formula: see text] is less than [Formula: see text] fm, the spontaneous symmetry breaking concept is no longer valid. In addition, we first introduce the spatial susceptibility, and through the study of the spatial susceptibility, it was revealed for the first time that the chiral phase transition caused by the finite volume effects in the non-chiral limit is a crossover.

Possible ferromagnetism of dense quark matter

The cardinal focus of the present review is to investigate the possibility of the para-ferro phase transition of dense quark matter. For these, the calculation of the single-particle energies, ground state energy (GSE) densities, and spin susceptibility χ of degenerate quark matter with one gluon exchange interaction in terms of spin-dependent Landau parameters (LPs) have been presented. The expressions for the GSE and χ of cold and dense spin-polarized quark matter have been derived with corrections due to correlation. Furthermore, the magnetic properties of spin polarized quark matter have been discussed by evaluating the magnetization ⟨M⟩ and magnetic susceptibility χM in terms of LPs. Finally, the possibility of magnetic instability has been revealed by studying the density dependence of ⟨M⟩ and χM.

Chiral phase transition of quark matter in the background of parallel electric and magnetic fields

We report on our results about spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking for quark matter in the background of static and homogeneous parallel electric field, \({{\varvec{E}}}\), and magnetic field, \({{\varvec{B}}}\). A Nambu–Jona–Lasinio model is used to compute the dependence of the chiral condensate at finite temperature, E and B. We study the effect of this background on inverse catalysis of chiral symmetry breaking for E and B of the same order of magnitude. We also consider the effect of equilibration of chiral density, \(n_5\), produced by axial anomaly on the critical temperature. The equilibration of \(n_5\) allows for the introduction of the chiral chemical potential, \(\mu _5\), which is computed self-consistently as a function of temperature and field strength. We find that even if the chiral medium is produced by the fields the thermodynamics, with particular reference to the inverse catalysis induced by the external fields, it is not very affected by \(n_5\) at least if the average \(\mu _5\), at equilibrium is not too large.

Kinetics of phase transitions in quark matter

We study the kinetics of chiral transitions in quark matter using a phenomenological framework (Ginzburg-Landau model). We focus on the effect of inertial terms on the coarsening dynamics subsequent to a quench from the massless quark phase to the massive quark phase. The domain growth process shows a crossover from a fast inertial regime (with ) to a diffusive Cahn-Allen regime (with ).

Generic features of the phase transition in cold and dense quark matter

We investigate the phase transition in cold and dense quark matter in an intuitive way that shares common features of the effective model approaches. We first express the quasiparticle contribution to the thermodynamic potential with the dynamical mass $M$ and then discuss how we can understand the possible first-order phase transition with and without the vector interaction from the saturation curve on the plane of the energy per particle and the density. We next extend our analysis including inhomogeneity and discuss the relation between the order of the phase transition and the saturation curve. We emphasize that the saturation curve is useful to infer qualitative nature of the phase transition even without knowing the explicit solution of the ground state.

Solving a relativistic hydrodynamic equation in the presence of a magnetic field for a phase transition in a neutron star

A hadronic to quark matter phase transition may occur inside neutron stars having the central densities of the order of three to ten times the normal nuclear matter saturation density (n0). The transition is expected to be a two-step process; transition from hadronic matter to two-flavour matter and two-flavour matter to β equilibrated charge neutral three-flavour matter. In this paper, we concentrate on the first step of the process and solve the relativistic hydrodynamic equations for the conversion front in the presence of a high magnetic field. The Lorentz force due to the magnetic field is included in the energy–momentum tensor by averaging over the polar angles. We find that for an initial dipole configuration of the magnetic field with a sufficiently high value at the surface, the velocity of the front increases considerably.

Domain growth in chiral phase transitions

We investigate the kinetics of chiral phase transitions in quark matter. We discuss the phase diagram of this system in both a microscopic framework (using the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model) and a phenomenological framework (using a Landau free energy). Then, we study the far-from-equilibrium coarsening dynamics subsequent to a quench from the chirally-symmetric phase to the massive quark phase. Depending on the nature of the quench, the system evolves via either {\it spinodal decomposition} or {\it nucleation and growth}. The morphology of the ordering system is characterized using the order-parameter correlation function, structure factor, domain growth laws, etc.

Strange quark matter in explosive astrophysical systems

Explosive astrophysical systems, such as supernovae or compact star binary mergers, provide conditions where strange quark matter can appear. The high degree of isospin asymmetry and temperatures of several MeV in such systems may cause a transition to the quark phase already around saturation density. Observable signals from the appearance of quark matter can be predicted and studied in astrophysical simulations. As input in such simulations, an equation of state with an integrated quark matter phase transition for a large temperature, density and proton fraction range is required. Additionally, restrictions from heavy ion data and pulsar observation must be considered. In this work we present such an approach. We implement a quark matter phase transition in a hadronic equation of state widely used for astrophysical simulations and discuss its compatibility with heavy ion collisions and pulsar data. Furthermore, we review the recently studied implications of the QCD phase transition during the early post-bounce evolution of core-collapse supernovae and introduce the effects from strong interactions to increase the maximum mass of hybrid stars. In the MIT bag model, together with the strange quark mass and the bag constant, the strong coupling constant αs provides a parameter to set the beginning and extension of the quark phase and with this the mass and radius of hybrid stars.

Critical surface in hot and dense QCD with the vector interaction

We discuss the chiral phase transition of hot and dense quark matter. We illustrate that the first-order phase transition is generally favored at high baryon density and the repulsive vector-vector interaction weakens the first-order phase transition. We use the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with the Polyakov loop coupling for concreteness. We locate the QCD critical surface on the quark mass plane for various values of the vector coupling constant. We find that, with increasing quark chemical potential, the first-order region in the quark mass plane could shrink for sufficiently large vector coupling. This may be a possible explanation for the recent lattice QCD results by de Forcrand and Philipsen.

Bound states and superconductivity in dense Fermi systems

A quantum field theoretical approach to the thermodynamics of dense Fermi systems is developed for the description of the formation and dissolution of quantum condensates and bound states in dependence of temperature and density. As a model system we study the chiral and superconducting phase transitions in two-flavor quark matter within the NJL model and their interrelation with the formation of quark-antiquark and diquark bound states. The phase diagram of quark matter is evaluated as a function of the diquark coupling strength and a coexistence region of chiral symmetry breaking and color superconductivity is obtained at very strong coupling. The crossover between Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of diquark bound states and condensation of diquark resonances (Cooper pairs) in the continuum (BCS) is discussed as a Mott effect. This effect consists in the transition of bound states into the continuum of scattering states under the influence of compression and heating. We explain the physics of the Mott transition with special emphasis on role of the Pauli principle for the case of the pion in quark matter.