Polyakov Loop Research Articles

Thermodynamics of quark matter with multiquark clusters in an effective Beth-Uhlenbeck type approach

We describe multiquark clusters in quark matter within a Beth-Uhlenbeck approach in a background gluon field coupled to the underlying chiral quark dynamics using the Polyakov gauge. An effective potential for the traced Polyakov loop is used to establish the center symmetry of the SU(3) color which suppresses colored states and its dynamical breaking as an aspect of the confinement/deconfinement transition. Quark confinement is modeled by a large quark mass in vacuum which is motivated by a confining density functional approach. A multiquark cluster containing n quarks and antiquarks is described as a binary composite of smaller subclusters n1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$n_1$$\\end{document} and n2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$n_2$$\\end{document} (n1+n2=n\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$n_1+n_2=n$$\\end{document}). It has a spectrum consisting of a bound state and a scattering state continuum. For the corresponding cluster-cluster phase shifts we use simple ansätze that capture the Mott dissociation of clusters as a function of temperature and chemical potential. We go beyond the simple “step-up-step-down” model that ignores continuum correlations and introduce an improved model that includes them in a generic form. In order to explain the model, we restrict ourselves here to the cases where the cluster size is 1≤n≤6\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$1 \\le n \\le 6$$\\end{document}. A striking result is the suppression of the abundance of colored multiquark clusters at low temperatures by the coupling to the Polyakov loop and their importance for a quantitative description of lattice QCD thermodynamics at non-vanishing baryochemical potentials. An important ingredient are Polyakov-loop generalized distribution functions of n-quark clusters which are derived here for the first time. Within our approach we calculate thermodynamic properties such as baryon density and entropy. We demonstrate that the limits of a hadron resonance gas at low temperatures and O(g2)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\mathcal {O}(g^2)$$\\end{document} perturbative QCD at high temperatures are correctly reproduced. A comparison with lattice calculations shows that our model is able to give a unified, systematic approach to describe properties of the quark-gluon-hadron system.

Dual simulation of a Polyakov loop model at finite baryon density: Correlations and screening masses

Computations of screening masses in finite-temperature QCD at finite density are plagued by the sign problem and have been performed so far with an imaginary chemical potential. Here, we use a dual formulation of a Polyakov-loop model which allows the determination of screening masses at real baryon chemical potential. This is a second paper in a series devoted to a detailed study of dual Polyakov-loop models at finite density. While the first paper was mainly devoted to establishing the phase diagram of the model, here we compute correlation functions of the Polyakov loops and the second-moment correlation length at non-zero chemical potential. This enables us to evaluate numerically the screening masses from correlations of the real and imaginary parts of the Polyakov loops. We also compute these masses in the mean-field approximation and compare with numerical results. In addition, we provide a quantitative improvement of the general phase diagram presented in the first paper.

Progress in the lattice evaluation of entanglement entropy of three-dimensional Yang-Mills theories and holographic bulk reconstruction

A construction of a gravity dual to a physical gauge theory requires confronting data. We establish a proof-of-concept for precision holography, i.e., the explicit reconstruction of the dual background metric functions directly from the entanglement entropy (EE) of strip subregions that we extract from pure glue Yang-Mills theory discretized on a lattice. Our main focus is on a three-dimensional Euclidean SU2 theory in the deconfining phase. Holographic EE suggests, and we find evidence for, that the scaling of the thermal entropy with temperature is to power 7/3 and that it approaches smoothly the critical point, consistent with black hole thermodynamics. In addition, we provide frugal results on the potential between quenched quarks by the computation of the Polyakov loop correlators on the lattice. Holographic arguments pique curiosity in the substratum of Debye screening at strong coupling.

Highly magnetized quark matter in the chiral limit

AbstractWe examine the behavior of highly magnetized two‐light‐flavor quark matter within the context of a nonlocal NJL‐type model. This analysis assumes the chiral limit and incorporates the interaction between fermions and the Polyakov loop. Our calculations utilize a covariant Gaussian form factor. We present phase diagrams on the plane, illustrating different magnetic field strengths. Additionally, we examine the critical endpoint's placement and the de Haas‐Van Alphen transitions within the chiral restored phase, observing their temperature‐dependent characteristics.

Building models of quarks and gluons with an arbitrary number of colors using Cartan-Polyakov loops

In this work we introduce the concept of Cartan-Polyakov loops, a special subset of Polyakov loops in the fundamental and antifundamental representation of the SU(Nc) group, ℓF,k and ℓ‾F,k respectively, with charges k=1,…,(Nc−1)/2. It constitutes a sufficient set of independent degrees of freedom and it is used to parametrize the thermal Wilson line. Polyakov loops not contained in this set are classified as non-Cartan-Polyakov loops. Using properties of the characteristic polynomial of the thermal Wilson line, we write a non-Cartan-Polyakov loop charge decomposition formula. This formalism allows one to readily build effective models of quarks and gluons with an arbitrary number of colors. We apply it to the Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model and to an effective glue model, in the mean field approximation, showing how to directly extend these models to higher values of Nc.

Thermal QCD in a non-uniform magnetic background

Off-central heavy-ion collisions are known to feature magnetic fields with magnitudes and characteristic gradients corresponding to the scale of the strong interactions. In this work, we employ equilibrium lattice simulations of the underlying theory, QCD, involving similar inhomogeneous magnetic field profiles to achieve a better understanding of this system. We simulate three flavors of dynamical staggered quarks with physical masses at a range of magnetic fields and temperatures, and extrapolate the results to the continuum limit. Analyzing the impact of the field on the quark condensate and the Polyakov loop, we find non-trivial spatial features that render the QCD medium qualitatively different as in the homogeneous setup, especially at temperatures around the transition. In addition, we construct leading-order chiral perturbation theory for the inhomogeneous background and compare its prediction to our lattice results at low temperature. Our findings will be useful to benchmark effective theories and low-energy models of QCD for a better description of peripheral heavy-ion collisions.

Influence of the regularization scheme in the QCD phase diagram in the PNJL model

Abstract In the context of the SU(2) quark flavor version of the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model extended by the Polyakov loop, the effect of the regularization scheme on the quantum chromodynamics phase structure at finite volume was studied. The way in which the phase diagram changes with the type of Polyakov loop potential considered in this study was also investigated. In this study, a polynomial and a logarithmic potential were used. On the other hand, a regularization scheme that satisfies the thermodynamics properties such as the Stefan–Boltzmann limit was chosen.

A Model Study on the Effects of n-Mesons on Thermodynamics of Strongly Interacting Systems

Properties of strongly interacting matter are quite well-described by the Polyakov loop enhanced Nambu-Jona—Lasinio (PNJL) model as it incorporates two important symmetries. However, discrepancies in low temperature domain remain unless hadronic effects are entwined. Here we have tried to observe the effect of lowest lying hadrons i.e. ?-mesons (pions) considering their medium-dependent masses for zero chemical potential. The thermodynamic quantities now show satisfactory matches with existing lattice QCD and HRG results over the finite temperature window of interest.

The QCD phase diagram in the space of imaginary chemical potential via ’t Hooft anomalies

The QCD phase diagram in the space of temperature and imaginary baryon chemical potential has been an interesting subject in numerical lattice QCD simulations because of the absence of the sign problem and its deep structure related to confinement/deconfinement. We study constraints on the phase diagram by using an ’t Hooft anomaly. The relevant anomaly is an anomaly in the space of imaginary chemical potential. We compute it in the UV, and discuss how it is matched by the pion effective field theory at low temperatures. Then we study implications of the anomaly to the phase diagram. There must be a line of phase transition studied in the past by Roberge and Weiss such that the expectation value of the Polyakov loop is not smooth when we cross the line. Moreover, if the greatest common divisor of the color and flavor numbers is greater than one, the phase transition across the Roberge-Weiss line must be either a first order phase transition, or a second order phase transition described by a nontrivial interacting three-dimensional CFT.

Gap equations of background field invariant refined Gribov-Zwanziger action proposals and the deconfinement transition

In earlier work, we set up an effective potential approach at zero temperature for the Gribov-Zwanziger model that takes into account not only the restriction to the first Gribov region as a way to deal with the gauge fixing ambiguity, but also the effect of dynamical dimension-two vacuum condensates. Here, we investigate the model at finite temperature in presence of a background gauge field that allows access to the Polyakov loop expectation value and the Yang-Mills (de)confinement phase structure. This necessitates paying attention to Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin and background gauge invariance of the whole construct. We employ two such methods as proposed elsewhere in literature: one based on using an appropriate dressed, Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin invariant, gluon field by the authors and one based on a Wilson-loop dressed Gribov-Zwanziger auxiliary field sector by Kroff and Reinosa. The latter approach outperforms the former in estimating the critical temperature for $N=2$, 3 as well as correctly predicting the order of the transition for both cases.

Effective model for pure Yang-Mills theory on T2×R2 with Polyakov loops

We investigate the phase diagram and thermodynamics of $SU(N)$ pure Yang-Mills theory on a manifold $\mathbb{T}^2\times \mathbb{R}^2$ with an effective model that includes two Polyakov loops along two compactified directions. We find that a rich phase structure can appear owing to the spontaneous breaking of two center symmetries for $N=2$ and $3$. Thermodynamic quantities are obtained in the model and compared with recent lattice results. It is shown that two Polyakov loops play significant roles in thermodynamics on $\mathbb{T}^2\times \mathbb{R}^2$.

Effects of finite volume and magnetic fields on thermodynamic properties of quark matter and fluctuations of conserved charges

In the current work, we present the influence of finite volume and magnetic field on the thermodynamic properties of isospin asymmetric quark matter using the Polyakov loop extended chiral SU(3) quark mean field (PCQMF) model at finite chemical potential and temperature. Within the PCQMF model, we use the scalar and vector field values in mean-field approximation to obtain the thermodynamic properties: pressure density, entropy density and energy density. The susceptibilities of conserved charges for strongly interacting matter for different system sizes as well as for different values of the magnetic field have been studied. A sizable shift in phase boundary towards the higher values of quark chemical potential ($\mu_q$) and temperature (T) has been observed for decreasing values of system volume as well as an opposite shift towards lower temperature and quark chemical potential for increasing magnetic field. We observe an enhancement in fluctuations of conserved charges in the regime of the transition temperature. These studies may have a significant role in understanding the thermodynamic observables extracted from heavy-ion collisions data.

Topological features of the deconfinement transition

The first order transition between the confining and the center symmetry breaking phases of the SU(3) Yang-Mills theory is marked by discontinuities in various thermodynamics functions, such as the energy density or the value of the Polyakov loop. We investigate the nonanalytical behavior of the topological susceptibility and its higher cumulant around the transition temperature and make the connection to the curvature of the phase diagram in the $T\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\theta}$ plane and to the latent heat.

Self-learning Monte Carlo for non-Abelian gauge theory with dynamical fermions

In this paper, we develop the self-learning Monte-Carlo (SLMC) algorithm for non-Abelian gauge theory with dynamical fermions in four dimensions to resolve the autocorrelation problem in lattice QCD. We perform simulations with the dynamical staggered fermions and plaquette gauge action by both in the hybrid Monte-Carlo (HMC) and SLMC for zero and finite temperature to examine the validity of SLMC. We confirm that SLMC can reduce autocorrelation time in non-Abelian gauge theory and reproduce results from HMC. For finite temperature runs, we confirm that SLMC reproduces correct results with HMC, including higher-order moments of the Polyakov loop and the chiral condensate. Besides, our finite temperature calculations indicate that four flavor ${\mathrm{QC}}_{2}\mathrm{D}$ with $\stackrel{^}{m}=0.5$ is likely in the crossover regime in the Colombia plot.

Weak Universality Induced by Q=±2e Charges at the Deconfinement Transition of a (2+1)-Dimensional U(1) Lattice Gauge Theory.

Matter-free lattice gauge theories (LGTs) provide an ideal setting to understand confinement to deconfinement transitions at finite temperatures, which is typically due to the spontaneous breakdown (at large temperatures) of the center symmetry associated with the gauge group. Close to the transition, the relevant degrees of freedom (Polyakov loop) transform under these center symmetries, and the effective theory depends on only the Polyakov loop and its fluctuations. As shown first by Svetitsky and Yaffe, and subsequently verified numerically, for the U(1) LGT in (2+1) dimensions, the transition is in the 2D XY universality class, while for the Z_{2} LGT, it is in the 2D Ising universality class. We extend this classic scenario by adding higher charged matter fields and show that the critical exponents γ and ν can change continuously as a coupling is varied, while their ratio is fixed to the 2D Ising value. While such weak universality is well known for spin models, we demonstrate this for LGTs for the first time. Using an efficient cluster algorithm, we show that the finite temperature phase transition of the U(1) quantum link LGT in the spin S=1/2 representation is in the 2D XY universality class, as expected. On the addition of Q=±2e charges distributed thermally, we demonstrate the occurrence of weak universality.

Confinement in non-Abelian lattice gauge theory via persistent homology

We investigate the structure of confining and deconfining phases in SU(2) lattice gauge theory via persistent homology, which gives us access to the topology of a hierarchy of combinatorial objects constructed from given data. Specifically, we use filtrations by traced Polyakov loops, topological densities, holonomy Lie algebra fields, as well as electric and magnetic fields. This allows for a comprehensive picture of confinement. In particular, topological densities form spatial lumps which show signatures of the classical probability distribution of instanton-dyons. Signatures of well-separated dyons located at random positions are encoded in holonomy Lie algebra fields, following the semiclassical temperature dependence of the instanton appearance probability. Debye screening discriminating between electric and magnetic fields is visible in persistent homology and pronounced at large gauge coupling. All employed constructions are gauge-invariant without a priori assumptions on the configurations under study. This work showcases the versatility of persistent homology for statistical and quantum physics studies, barely explored to date.

Spontaneous magnetization of a vacuum in high temperature gluodynamics (two-­loop approximation)

In SU(N) gluodynamics, at high temperature the spontaneous magnetization, b(T) ≠ 0, of a vac­uum happens in the approximation to the effective potential ­- the tree plus the one-­loop, plus daisy diagrams, W(b) = b2/2g2 + W(1)(b) + Wdaisy(b). At the same time, in two­-loop approximation, W(A0) = W(1) (A0) + W(2)(A0), other classical field ­ A0 condensate directly related to the Polyakov loop - ­is also spontaneously generated. To investigate the creation of the condensates together, the two-loop effective po­tential of both fields should be calculated. This program was realized recently for SU(2) in [1]. However, the generation of magnetic field in two­-loop order was not studied in detail. In the present paper, we compute the value of chromomagnetic field b(T) for latter case. Then, considering the spectrum of color charged gluons at the background of both condensates, we conclude that the A0 stabilizes the magnetized vacuum at high temperature. This is in agreement with the lattice simulations carried out already and clarifies the mechanism of the magnetic field stabilization.

Fate of the critical endpoint at large Nc

The phase diagram of QCD is investigated by varying number of colors $N_c$ within a Polyakov loop quark-meson chiral model. In particular, our attention is focused on the critical point(s): the critical point present for $N_c=3$ moves toward the $\mu_q$-axis and disappears as soon as the number of color is increased. Yet, a distinct critical point emerges along the temperature axis for $N_c = 53$ and moves toward finite density when increasing $N_c$ further. Thus, the phase diagram at large $N_c$ looks specular w.r.t. the $N_c = 3$ results, with the first order transition in the upper-left and crossover in the down-right regions of the the $(\mu_q,T)$-plane. The pressure is also evaluated in dependence of $N_c$, showing a scaling with $N_c^0$ in the confined and chirally broken phase and with $N_c^2$ in the deconfined one. Moreover, the presence of a chirally symmetric but confined `quarkyonic phase' at large density and moderate temperature with a pressure proportional to $N_c$ is confirmed.

Canonical partition function and center symmetry breaking in finite density lattice gauge theories

We study the nature of the phase transition of lattice gauge theories at high temperature and high density by focusing on the probability distribution function, which represents the probability that a certain density will be realized in a heat bath. The probability distribution function is obtained by creating a canonical partition function fixing the number of particles from the grand partition function. However, if the Z_3 center symmetry, which is important for understanding the finite temperature phase transition of SU(3) lattice gauge theory, is maintained on a finite lattice, the probability distribution function is always zero, except when the number of particles is a multiple of 3. For U(1) lattice gauge theory, this problem is more serious. The probability distribution becomes zero when the particle number is nonzero. This problem is essentially the same as the problem that the expectation value of the Polyakov loop is always zero when calculating with finite volume. In this study, we propose a solution to this problem. We also propose a method to avoid the sign problem, which is an important problem at finite density, using the center symmetry. In the case of U(1) lattice gauge theory with heavy fermions, numerical simulations are actually performed, and we demonstrate that the probability distribution function at a finite density can be calculated by the method proposed in this study. Furthermore, the application of this method to QCD is discussed.

SU(N) fractional instantons and the Fibonacci sequence

We study, by means of numerical methods, new SU(N) self-dual instanton solutions on R × T3 with fractional topological charge Q = 1/N. They are obtained on a box with twisted boundary conditions with a very particular choice of twist: both the number of colours and the ’t Hooft ZN fluxes piercing the box are taken within the Fibonacci sequence, i.e. N = Fn (the nth number in the series) and left|overrightarrow{m}right| = left|overrightarrow{k}right| = Fn−2. Various arguments based on previous works and in particular on ref. [1], indicate that this choice of twist avoids the breakdown of volume independence in the large N limit. These solutions become relevant on a Hamiltonian formulation of the gauge theory, where they represent vacuum-to-vacuum tunneling events lifting the degeneracy between electric flux sectors present in perturbation theory. We discuss the large N scaling properties of the solutions and evaluate various gauge invariant quantities like the action density or Wilson and Polyakov loop operators.