Scalar Condensate Research Articles

Effects of backreaction and exponential nonlinear electrodynamics on the holographic superconductors

We analytically study the properties of a [Formula: see text]-dimensional [Formula: see text]-wave holographic superconductor in the presence of exponential nonlinear (EN) electrodynamics. We consider the case in which the scalar and gauge fields back react on the background metric. Employing the analytical Sturm–Liouville method, we find that in the black hole background, the nonlinear electrodynamics correction will affect the properties of the holographic superconductors. We find that with increasing both backreaction and nonlinear parameters, the scalar hair condensation on the boundary will develop more difficult. We obtain the relation connecting the critical temperature with the charge density. Our analytical results support that, even in the presence of the nonlinear electrodynamics and backreaction, the phase transition for the holographic superconductor still belongs to the second-order and the critical exponent of the system always takes the mean-field value [Formula: see text].

Boundary effects and gapped dispersion in rotating fermionic matter

We discuss the importance of boundary effects on fermionic matter in a rotating frame. By explicit calculations at zero temperature we show that the scalar condensate of fermion and anti-fermion cannot be modified by the rotation once the boundary condition is properly implemented. The situation is qualitatively changed at finite temperature and/or in the presence of a sufficiently strong magnetic field that supersedes the boundary effects. Therefore, to establish an interpretation of the rotation as an effective chemical potential, it is crucial to consider further environmental effects such as the finite temperature and magnetic field.

Various types of holographic metal/superconductor phase transitions with dark matter sector

We generalize the holographic superconductor model with dark matter sector by including the Stückelberg mechanism in the four-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) black hole background away from the probe limit. We study effects of the dark matter sector on the [Formula: see text]-wave scalar condensation and find that the dark matter sector affects the critical phase transition temperature and also the order of phase transitions. At last, we conclude that the dark matter sector brings richer physics in this general metal/superconductor system.

Renormalisation group determination of scalar mass bounds in a simple Yukawa-model

The scalar mass is determined in the simplest cut-off regularized Yukawa-model in the whole range of stability of the scalar potential. Two versions of the Functional Renormalisation Group (FRG) equations are solved in the Local Potential Approximation (LPA), where also the possible existence of a composite fermionic background is taken into account. The close agreement of the results with previous studies taking into account exclusively the effect of the scalar condensate, supports a rather small systematic truncation error of FRG due to the omission of higher dimensional operators.

Non-equilibrium phase and entanglement entropy in 2D holographic superconductors via gauge–string duality

An alternative method of developing the theory of non-equilibrium two-dimensional holographic superconductor is to start from the definition of a time-dependent AdS3 background. As originally proposed, many of these formulae were cast in exponential form, but the adoption of the numeric method of expression throughout the bulk serves to show more clearly the relationship between the various parameters. The time dependence behavior of the scalar condensation and Maxwell fields are fitted numerically. A usual value for Maxwell field on AdS horizon is exp(–bt), and the exponential log ratio is therefore 10−8 s−1. The coefficient b of the time in the exponential term exp(–bt) can be interpreted as a tool to measure the degree of dynamical instability; its reciprocal 1/b is the time in which the disturbance is multiplied in the ratio. A discussion of some of the exponential formulae is given by the scalar field ψ(z, t) near the AdS boundary. It may be possible that a long interval would elapse in the system, which tends to the equilibrium state, where the normal mass and conformal dimensions emerged. A somewhat curious calculation has been made to illustrate the holographic entanglement entropy for this system. The foundation of all this calculation is, of course, a knowledge of multiple (connected and disconnected) extremal surfaces. There are several cases in which exact and approximate solutions are jointly used; a variable numerical quantity is represented by a graph, and the principles of approximation are then applied to determine related numerical quantities. In the case of the disconnected phase with a finite extremal area, we find a discontinuity in the first derivative of the entanglement entropy as the conserved charge J is increased.

Confinement/deconfinement transition from symmetry breaking in gauge/gravity duality

We study the confinement/deconfinement transition in a strongly coupled system triggered by an independent symmetry-breaking quantum phase transition in gauge/gravity duality. The gravity dual is an Einstein-scalar-dilaton system with AdS near-boundary behavior and soft wall interior at zero scalar condensate. We study the cases of neutral and charged condensate separately. In the former case the condensation breaks the discrete $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry while a charged condensate breaks the continuous $U(1)$ symmetry. After the condensation of the order parameter, the non-zero vacuum expectation value of the scalar couples to the dilaton, changing the soft wall geometry into a non-confining and anisotropically scale-invariant infrared metric. In other words, the formation of long-range order is immediately followed by the deconfinement transition and the two critical points coincide. The confined phase has a scale -- the confinement scale (energy gap) which vanishes in the deconfined case. Therefore, the breaking of the symmetry of the scalar ($\mathbb{Z}_2$ or $U(1)$) in turn restores the scaling symmetry in the system and neither phase has a higher overall symmetry than the other. When the scalar is charged the phase transition is continuous which goes against the Ginzburg-Landau theory where such transitions generically only occur discontinuously. This phenomenon has some commonalities with the scenario of deconfined criticality. The mechanism we have found has applications mainly in effective field theories such as quantum magnetic systems. We briefly discuss these applications and the relation to real-world systems.

Dynamical formation of a Reissner-Nordström black hole with scalar hair in a cavity

In a recent letter, we presented numerical relativity simulations, solving the full Einstein--Maxwell--Klein-Gordon equations, of superradiantly unstable Reissner-Nordstr\"om black holes (BHs), enclosed in a cavity. Low frequency, spherical perturbations of a charged scalar field, trigger this instability. The system's evolution was followed into the non-linear regime, until it relaxed into an equilibrium configuration, found to be a $\textit{hairy}$ BH: a charged horizon in equilibrium with a scalar field condensate, whose phase is oscillating at the (final) critical frequency. Here, we investigate the impact of adding self-interactions to the scalar field. In particular, we find sufficiently large self-interactions suppress the exponential growth phase, known from linear theory, and promote a non-monotonic behaviour of the scalar field energy. Furthermore, we discuss in detail the influence of the various parameters in this model: the initial BH charge, the initial scalar perturbation, the scalar field charge, mass, and the position of the cavity's boundary (mirror). We also investigate the "explosive" non-linear regime previously reported to be akin to a bosenova. A mode analysis shows that the "explosions" can be interpreted as the decay into the BH of modes that exit the superradiant regime.

Observables and open problems for NICA

The restoration of chiral symmetry in hot dense nuclear systems in competition with a transition to deconfined matter in central nucleus-nucleus collisions at NICA energies is a central problem of nuclear physics. To explore these transitions we study the production of hadrons in nucleus-nucleus collisions from 4 to 160A GeV within the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach that is extended to incorporate essentials aspects of chiral-symmetry restoration (CSR) in the hadronic sector (via the Schwinger mechanism) on top of the deconfinement phase transition as implemented in PHSD. The modeling of chiral-symmetry restoration in PHSD is driven by the pion-nucleon $\Sigma$ -term in the computation of the quark scalar condensate $\langle q \bar{q} \rangle$ that serves as an order parameter for CSR and is assumed to scale with the effective quark masses $ m_{s}$ and $ m_{q}$ . Furthermore, the nucleon scalar density $\rho_{s}$ , which also enters the computation of $\langle q \bar{q} \rangle$ , is evaluated within the nonlinear $\sigma$ - $ \omega$ model which is constrained by Dirac-Brueckner calculations and low-energy heavy-ion reactions. The essential impact of CSR is found in the Schwinger mechanism (for string decay) which fixes the ratio of strange to light quark production in the hadronic medium. We find that above $\sim 80$ A GeV the reaction dynamics of heavy nuclei is dominantly driven by partonic degrees-of-freedom such that traces of the chiral-symmetry restoration are hard to identify. Our studies support the conjecture of “quarkyonic matter” in heavy-ion collisions from about 5 to 40A GeV and suggest a microscopic explanation for the maximum in the $ K^{+}/\pi^{+}$ ratio at about 30A GeV which only shows up if in addition to CSR a deconfinement transition to partonic degrees-of-freedom is incorporated in the reaction dynamics.

Radiatively induced breaking of conformal symmetry in a superpotential

Radiatively induced symmetry breaking is considered for a toy model with one scalar and one fermion field unified in a superfield. It is shown that the classical quartic self-interaction of the superfield possesses a quantum infrared singularity. Application of the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism for effective potential leads to the appearance of condensates and masses for both scalar and fermion components. That induces a spontaneous breaking of the initial classical symmetries: the supersymmetry and the conformal one. The energy scales for the scalar and fermion condensates appear to be of the same order, while the renormalization scale is many orders of magnitude higher. A possibility to relate the considered toy model to conformal symmetry breaking in the Standard Model is discussed.

Explosion and Final State of an Unstable Reissner-Nordström Black Hole.

A Reissner-Nordström black hole (BH) is superradiantly unstable against spherical perturbations of a charged scalar field enclosed in a cavity, with a frequency lower than a critical value. We use numerical relativity techniques to follow the development of this unstable system-dubbed a charged BH bomb-into the nonlinear regime, solving the full Einstein-Maxwell-Klein-Gordon equations, in spherical symmetry. We show that (i)the process stops before all the charge is extracted from the BH, and (ii)the system settles down into a hairy BH: a charged horizon in equilibrium with a scalar field condensate, whose phase is oscillating at the (final) critical frequency. For a low scalar field charge q, the final state is approached smoothly and monotonically. For large q, however, the energy extraction overshoots, and an explosive phenomenon, akin to a bosenova, pushes some energy back into the BH. The charge extraction, by contrast, does not reverse.

Genesis of electroweak and dark matter scales from a bilinear scalar condensate

The condensation of scalar bilinear in a classically scale invariant strongly interacting hidden sector is used to generate the electroweak scale, where the excitation of the condensate is identified as dark matter. We formulate an effective theory for the condensation of the scalar bilinear and find in the self-consistent mean field approximation that the dark matter mass is of $O(1)$ TeV with the spin-independent elastic cross section off the nucleon slightly below the LUX upper bound.

Light ’t Hooft top partners

Vector-like quarks, usually dubbed top partners, are a common presence in composite Higgs models. Being composite objects, their mass is expected to be of the order of their inverse size, that is the condensation scale of the new strong interactions. Light top partners, while not being a generic prediction, are however often considered in phenomenological models. We suggest that their lightness may be due to the matching of global 't Hooft anomalies of the underlying theory. We check this mechanism in explicit models showing that, in one case, composite fermions with the quantum numbers of the top quark obtain a mass which is controlled by a soft breaking term and can be made parametrically small.

Vortices with scalar condensates in two-component Ginzburg–Landau systems

In a class of two-component Ginzburg-Landau models (TCGL) with a U(1)$\times$U(1) symmetric potential, vortices with a condensate at their core may have significantly lower energies than the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen (ANO) ones. On the example of liquid metallic hydrogen (LMH) above the critical temperature for protons we show that the ANO vortices become unstable against core-condensation, while condensate-core (CC) vortices are stable. For LMH the ratio of the masses of the two types of condensates, $M=m_2/m_1$ is large, and then as a consequence the energy per flux quantum of the vortices, $E_n/n$ becomes a non-monotonous function of the number of flux quanta, $n$. This leads to yet another manifestation of neither type 1 nor type 2, (type 1.5) superconductivity: superconducting and normal domains coexist while various "giant" vortices form. We note that LMH provides a particularly clean example of type 1.5 state as the interband coupling between electronic and protonic Cooper-pairs is forbidden.

Nonperturbative overproduction of axionlike particles via derivative interactions

Axion like particles (ALPs) are quite generic in many scenarios for physics beyond the Standard Model, they are pseudoscalar Nambu-Goldstone bosons, and appear once any global $U(1)$ symmetry is broken spontaneously. The ALPs can gain mass from various non-perturbative quantum effects, such as anomalies or instantons. ALPs can couple to the matter sector incluidng a scalar condensate such as inflaton or moduli field via derivative interactions, which are suppressed by the axion {\it decay constant}, $f_\chi$ . Although weakly interacting, the ALPs can be produced abundantly from the coherent oscillations of a homogeneous condensate. In this paper we will study such a scenario where the ALPs can be produced abundantly, and in some cases can even overclose the Universe via odd and even dimensional operators, as long as $f_\chi/\Phi_{\rm I} \ll 1$, where $\Phi_{\rm I}$ denotes the initial amplitude of the coherent oscillations of the scalar condensate, $\phi$. We will briefly mention how such dangerous overproduction would affect dark matter and dark radiation abundances in the Universe.

Non-equilibrium condensation process in holographic superconductor with nonlinear electrodynamics

We study the non-equilibrium condensation process in a holographic superconductor with nonlinear corrections to the U(1) gauge field. We start with an asymptotic Anti-de-Sitter(AdS) black hole against a complex scalar perturbation at the initial time, and solve the dynamics of the gravitational systems in the bulk. When the black hole temperature T is smaller than a critical value Tc, the scalar perturbation grows exponentially till saturation, the final state of spacetime approaches to a hairy black hole. In the bulk theory, we find the clue of the influence of nonlinear corrections in the gauge field on the process of the scalar field condensation. We show that the bulk dynamics in the non-equilibrium process is completely consistent with the observations on the boundary order parameter. Furthermore we examine the time evolution of horizons in the bulk non-equilibrium transformation process from the bald AdS black hole to the AdS hairy hole. Both the evolution of apparent and event horizons show that the original AdS black hole configuration requires more time to finish the transformation to become a hairy black hole if there is nonlinear correction to the electromagnetic field. We generalize our non-equilibrium discussions to the holographic entanglement entropy and find that the holographic entanglement entropy can give us further understanding of the influence of the nonlinearity in the gauge field on the scalar condensation. In our analysis, we also compare the effect of different models on the corrections to the gauge field on the formation of holographic superconductor.

Massive Yang–Mills for vector and axial-vector spectral functions at finite temperature

The hadronic mechanism which leads to chiral symmetry restoration is explored in the context of the ρπa1 system using Massive Yang–Mills, a hadronic effective theory which governs their microscopic interactions. In this approach, vector and axial-vector mesons are implemented as gauge bosons of a local chiral gauge group. We have previously shown that this model can describe the experimentally measured vector and axial-vector spectral functions in vacuum. Here, we carry the analysis to finite temperatures by evaluating medium effects in a pion gas and calculating thermal spectral functions. We find that the spectral peaks in both channels broaden along with a noticeable downward mass shift in the a1 spectral peak and negligible movement of the ρ peak. The approach toward spectral function degeneracy is accompanied by a reduction of chiral order parameters, i.e., the pion decay constant and scalar condensate. Our findings suggest a mechanism where the chiral mass splitting induced in vacuum is burned off. We explore this mechanism and identify future investigations which can further test it.

Ground state of the universe in quantum cosmology

We find a physical state of a closed universe with the minimal excitation of the universe expansion energy in quantum gravity. It is an analog of the vacuum state of the ordinary quantum field theory in the Minkowsky space, but in our approach an energy of space of a closed universe together with the energy of its matter content are minimized. This ground state is chosen among an enlarged set of physical states, compared with the ordinary covariant quantum gravity. In our approach, physical states are determined by weak constraints: quantum mechanical averages of gravitational constraint operators equal zero. As a result, they appear to be non-static in such a modification of quantum gravity. Quantum dynamics of the universe is described by Schrödinger equation with a cosmic time determined by weak gravitational constraints. In order to obtain the observed megascopic universe with the inflation stage just after its quantum beginning, a lot of the energy in the form of the inflaton scalar field condensate is prescribed to the initial state. Parameters of the initial state for a homogeneous model of the universe are calculated.

Chiral symmetry restoration versus deconfinement in heavy-ion collisions at high baryon density

We study the production of strange hadrons in nucleus-nucleus collisions from 4 to 160 A GeV within the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach that is extended to incorporate essentials aspects of chiral symmetry restoration (CSR) in the hadronic sector (via the Schwinger mechanism) on top of the deconfinement phase transition as implemented in PHSD. Especially the $K^+/\pi^+$ and the $(\Lambda+\Sigma^0)/\pi^-$ ratios in central Au+Au collisions are found to provide information on the relative importance of both transitions. The modelling of chiral symmetry restoration is driven by the pion-nucleon $\Sigma$-term in the computation of the quark scalar condensate $<q {\bar q}>$ that serves as an order parameter for CSR and also scales approximately with the effective quark masses $m_s$ and $m_q$. Furthermore, the nucleon scalar density $\rho_s$, which also enters the computation of $<q {\bar q}>$, is evaluated within the nonlinear $\sigma-\omega$ model which is constraint by Dirac-Brueckner calculations and low energy heavy-ion reactions. The Schwinger mechanism (for string decay) fixes the ratio of strange to light quark production in the hadronic medium. We find that above $\sim$80 A GeV the reaction dynamics of heavy nuclei is dominantly driven by partonic degrees-of-freedom such that traces of the chiral symmetry restoration are hard to identify. Our studies support the conjecture of 'quarkyonic matter' in heavy-ion collisions from about 5 to 40 A GeV and provide a microscopic explanation for the maximum in the $K^+/\pi^+$ ratio at about 30 A GeV which only shows up if a transition to partonic degrees-of-freedom is incorporated in the reaction dynamics and is discarded in the traditional hadron-string models.

Magnetic Properties in the Inhomogeneous Chiral Phase

We investigate the magnetic properties of quark matter in the inhomogeneous chiral phase, where both scalar and pseudoscalar condensates spatially modulate. The energy spectrum of the lowest Landau level becomes asymmetric about zero in the external magnetic field, and gives rise to the remarkably magnetic properties: quark matter has a spontaneous magnetization, while the magnetic susceptibility does not diverge on the critical point.

Entanglement entropy in a holographic Kondo model

We calculate entanglement and impurity entropies in a recent holographic model of a magnetic impurity interacting with a strongly coupled system. There is an RG flow to an IR fixed point where the impurity is screened, leading to a decrease in impurity degrees of freedom. This information loss corresponds to a volume decrease in our dual gravity model, which consists of a codimension one hypersurface embedded in a BTZ black hole background in three dimensions. There are matter fields defined on this hypersurface which are dual to Kondo field theory operators. In the large N limit, the formation of the Kondo cloud corresponds to the condensation of a scalar field. The entropy is calculated according to the Ryu‐Takayanagi prescription. This requires to determine the backreaction of the hypersurface on the BTZ geometry, which is achieved by solving the Israel junction conditions. We find that the larger the scalar condensate gets, the more the volume of constant time slices in the bulk is reduced, shortening the bulk geodesics and reducing the impurity entropy. This provides a new non‐trivial example of an RG flow satisfying the g‐theorem. Moreover, we find explicit expressions for the impurity entropy which are in agreement with previous field theory results for free electrons. This demonstrates the universality of perturbing about an IR fixed point.