We study baryons in SU(N) gauge theories at finite temperature according to the gauge/string correspondence based on IIB string theory. The baryon is constructed out of D5 brane and $N$ fundamental strings to form a color singlet $N$-quark bound state. At finite temperature and in the deconfining phase, we could find $k(<N)$-quark ``baryons''. Thermal properties of such $k$-quark baryons and also of the $N$-quark baryon are examined. We study the temperature dependence of color screening distance and Debye length of the baryon of $k$-quark and $N$-quark. We also estimate the melting temperature, where the baryons decay into quarks and gluons completely.
We discuss the extension of gauge-invariant electric and magnetic screening masses in the Quark-Gluon Plasma to the case of a finite baryon density, defining them in terms of a matrix of Polyakov loop correlators. We present lattice results for $N_f=2+1$ QCD with physical quark masses, obtained using the imaginary chemical potential approach, which indicate that the screening masses increase as a function of $μ_B$. A separate analysis is carried out for the theoretically interesting case $μ_B/T=3 i π$, where charge conjugation is not explicitly broken and the usual definition of the screening …
The L-dependence of the static potential between Nc quarks arranged in a circle of radius L (a "baryon") immersed in the hot plasma of a gauge theory with Nc colors defines a screening length Ls. We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to compute this screening length for the case of heavy quarks in the plasma of strongly coupled N=4 super Yang-Mills theory moving with velocity v relative to the baryon. We find that in the v -> 1 limit, Ls \propto (1-v^2)^{1/4}/T, and find that corrections to this velocity dependence are small at lower velocities. This result provides evidence for the robustness of …
We use gauge/string duality to estimate the Debye screening mass at non-zero temperature and baryon chemical potential. We interpret this mass as the smallest one in the open string channel. Comparisons are made with the results from holography and lattice QCD.
We study correlation functions of spatially separated static quark-antiquark pairs in (2+1)-flavor QCD in order to investigate onset and nature of color screening at high temperatures. We perform lattice calculations in a wide temperature range, $140 \le T \le 5814\,{\rm MeV}$, using the highly improved staggered quark action and several lattice spacings to control discretization effects. By comparing at high temperatures our lattice results to weak-coupling calculations as well as to the zero temperature result for the energy of a static quark-antiquark pair, we observe that color screening s…
We consider a strings-junction holographic model of probe baryon in the finite-temperature supersymmetric Yang-Mills dual of the AdS-Schwarzschild black hole background. In particular, we investigate the screening length for high spin baryon composed of rotating N_c heavy quarks. To rotate quarks by finite force, we put hard infrared cutoff in the bulk and give quarks finite mass. We find that N_c microscopic strings are embedded reasonably in the bulk geometry when they have finite angular velocity ω, similar to the meson case. By defining the screening length as the critical separation of qu…
We compute---at finite quark chemical potentials---the color screening of cold quark matter at the one-loop level, comparing the normal, BCS-paired U(1)em (or Higgs) phase and a singlet phase with color-singlet condensate near the Fermi surface. The latter phase is computed using the example of two-color QCD with a color-singlet diquark condensate. In contrast to the normal and Higgs phases, neither electric nor magnetic screening masses appear in the singlet phase. The absence of a magnetic mass, within a perturbative framework, is a consequence of the proper treatment of gauge invariance. Wh…
We argue that screening of higher-representation color charges by gluons implies a domain structure in the vacuum state of non-abelian gauge theories, with the color magnetic flux in each domain quantized in units corresponding to the gauge group center. Casimir scaling of string tensions at intermediate distances results from random spatial variations in the color magnetic flux within each domain. The exceptional G(2) gauge group is an example rather than an exception to this picture, although for G(2) there is only one type of vacuum domain, corresponding to the single element of the gauge g…
We study the cold and dense regime in the phase diagram of two-color QCD with heavy quarks within a three-dimensional effective theory for Polyakov loops. This theory is derived from two-color QCD in a combined strong-coupling and hopping expansion. In particular, we study the onset of diquark density as the finite-density transition of the bosonic baryons in the two-color world. In contrast to previous studies of heavy dense QCD, our zero-temperature extrapolations are consistent with a continuous transition without binding energy. They thus provide evidence that the effective theory for heav…
We study SU(2) color QCD with even number of quark flavors. First, using QCD inequalities we show that at finite baryon chemical potential mu, condensation must occur in the channel with scalar diquark quantum numbers. This breaks the U(1) symmetry generated by baryon charge (baryon superconductivity). Then we derive the effective Lagrangian describing low lying meson and baryon excitations using extended local chiral symmetry of the theory. This enables us to determine the leading term in the dependence of the masses on mu exactly.
We study the two-color QCD matter within two fundamental quark flavors via both chiral perturbation theory and Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model methods. The effective Lagrangian described by low lying meson and baryon, i.e., diquark, is derived, where the excitations locate in the extended $\mathrm{SU}(4)$ flavor symmetry space. We determine the leading order terms on the dependence of the baryon and axial isospin densities. Then, the two-color NJL model is employed to run the numerical simulation and the phase diagram in the plane of $μ-ν_{5}$ is plotted.
The color-flavor transformation, an identity that connects two integrals, each of which is over one of a dual pair of Lie groups acting in the fermionic Fock space, is extended to the case of the special unitary group. Using this extension, a toy model of lattice QCD is studied: N_f species of spinless fermions interacting with strongly coupled SU(N_c) lattice gauge fields in 1+1 dimensions. The color-flavor transformed theory is expressed in terms of gauge singlets, the meson fields, organized into sectors distinguished by the distribution of baryonic flux. A comprehensive analytical and nume…
We propose an extension of the Standard Model in which baryon number is promoted to be part of a non-Abelian gauge symmetry at high energies. Specifically, we consider the gauge group SU(4) x SU(2)_L x U(1)_X, where the SU(4) unifies baryon number and color. This symmetry is spontaneously broken down to the Standard Model gauge group at a scale which can be as low as a few TeV. The SU(4) structure implies that each SM quark comes along with an uncolored quark partner, the lightest of which is stabilized by the generalized baryon number symmetry and can play the role of dark matter. We explore …
We consider extended chiral group $Eχ$ of gauge plus chiral transformations of the quark path integral in the background gauge and present novel type of color solitons described by the effective action resulting from bosonization. O(3) solitons are formed by a chiral field including parameters with diquark quantum numbers within symplectic subgroup of $Eχ$, as well as within complete $Eχ$; isolated solitons (i.e. solitons in gluonic vacuum) can be stable due to proper asymptotics induced by background vacuum, their topological charge starts from $\pm \frac 43$ and does not coincide with the ba…
We study a cogenesis mechanism in which the observed baryon asymmetry of the universe and the dark matter abundance can be produced simultaneously at low reheating temperature without violating baryon number in the fundamental vertex. In particular, we consider a model which could be realized in the context of type IIB large volume string compactifications. The matter superfields in this model include additional pairs of color triplet and singlet superfields in addition to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) superfields. Assuming that the mass of the additional singlet fermions is…
We study the low energy phase structure of SU(2) gauge theories in three-dimensional spacetime, at finite baryon density. The pseudoreality of representations of SU(2) permits an analytic study of a real baryon chemical potential, and the restriction to 3D results in a different global symmetry breaking pattern from the corresponding 4D model studied previously by Kogut et al. We find a second-order phase transition separating the normal phase and the baryon superconducting phase. The chemical potential dependence of condensates and baryon density are computed. We find that the phase structure…
We consider a black hole solution with a non-trivial dilaton from IIB super gravity which is expected to describe a strongly coupled hot gauge plasma with non-vanishing gluon condensation present. We construct a rotating and moving baryon to probe the screening and phases of the plasma. Melting of the baryons in hot plasma in this background had been studied previously, however, we show that baryons melt much lower temperature than has been suggested previously.
We discuss theoretical issues pertaining to baryonic matter in the combined heavy-quark and large $N_c$ limits of QCD. Witten's classic argument that baryons and interacting systems of baryons can be described in a mean-field approximation with each of the quarks moving in an average potential due to the remaining quarks is heuristic. It is important to justify this heuristic description for the case of baryonic matter since systems of interacting baryons are intrinsically more complicated than single baryons due to the possibility of hidden color states---states in which the subsystems making…
We use a variational procedure to study finite density QCD in an approximation in which the interaction between quarks is modelled by that induced by instantons. We find that uniform states with conventional chiral symmetry breaking have negative pressure with respect to empty space at all but the lowest densities, and are therefore unstable. This is a precisely defined phenomenon which motivates the basic picture of hadrons assumed in the MIT bag model, with nucleons as droplets of chiral symmetry restored phase. At all densities high enough that the chirally symmetric phase fills space, we f…
In this paper we study the interactions among a static quark-antiquark pair in the presence of dense two-color quark matter with lattice simulation. To this end we compute Polyakov line correlation functions and determine the renormalized color averaged, color singlet and color triplet grand potentials. The color singlet grand potential allows us to elucidate the number of quarks induced by a static quark antiquark source, as well as the internal energy of such a pair in dense quark matter. We furthermore determine the screening length, which in the confinement phase is synonymous with the str…
We study QCD-like theories with pseudoreal fermions at finite baryon density. Such theories include two-color QCD with quarks in the fundamental representation of the color group as well as any-color QCD with quarks in the adjoint color representation. In all such theories the lightest baryons are diquarks. At zero chemical potential $μ$ they are, together with the pseudoscalar mesons, the Goldstone modes of a spontaneously broken enlarged chiral symmetry group. Using symmetry principles, we derive the low-energy effective Lagrangian for these particles. We find that a second order phase trans…
We use 2-color QCD as a model to study the effects of simultaneous presence of the so-called $θ$ parameter, chemical potentials for baryon number, $μ_B$ and for isospin charge, $μ_I$. We pay special attention to $θ$, $μ_B$, $μ_I$ dependence of different vacuum condensates, including chiral and diquark condensates, as well as the gluon condensate, $<G^2>$, and the topological susceptibility. We find that two phase transitions of the second order will occur when $θ$ relaxes from $θ=2π$ to $θ=0$, if $μ$ is of order of the pion mass. We demonstrate that the transition to the superfluid phase at $θ…
We consider the most general fractional background fluxes in the color, flavor, and baryon number directions, compatible with the faithful action of the global symmetry of a given theory. We call the obstruction to gauging symmetries revealed by such backgrounds the baryon-color-flavor (BCF) 't Hooft anomaly. We apply the BCF anomaly to vector-like theories, with fermions in higher-dimensional representations of arbitrary N-ality, and derive non-trivial constraints on their IR dynamics. In particular, this class of theories enjoys an independent discrete chiral symmetry and one may ask about t…
We show that in strongly coupled N=4 SYM the binding energy of a heavy and a light quark is independent of the strength of the coupling constant. As a consequence we are able to show that in the presence of light quarks the analog of the QCD string can snap and color charges are screened. The resulting neutral mesons interact with each other only via pion exchange and we estimate the masses
We analyze the impact of the $θ$-angle and axion dynamics for two-color (in fact any $Sp(2N)$) QCD at nonzero baryon charge and as a function of the number of matter fields on the vacuum properties, the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking as well as the spectrum of the theory. We show that the vacuum acquires a rich structure when the underlying $CP$ violating topological operator is added to the theory. We discover novel phases and analyse the order of their transitions characterizing the dynamics of the odd and even number of flavours. We further determine the critical chemical potential as …
We study vacuum structure of N=2 supersymmetric (SUSY) QCD, based on the gauge group SU(2) with N_f=2 flavors of massive hypermultiplet quarks, in the presence of non-zero baryon chemical potential (μ). The theory has a classical vacuum preserving baryon number symmetry, when a mass term, which breaks N=2 SUSY but preserves N=1 SUSY, for the adjoint gauge chiral multiplet (m_{ad}) is introduced. By using the exact result of N=2 SUSY QCD, we analyze low energy effective potential at the leading order of perturbation with respect to small SUSY breaking parameters, μand m_{ad}. We find that the b…
Using the dual string theory, we study a circular baryonic configuration in a wind of strongly coupled N=4 Yang-Mills plasma blowing in the plane of the baryon, before and after a quark has dissociated from it. A simple enough model that captures many interesting features is when there are four quarks in the baryon. As a step towards phenomenology, we compare representative dissociated configurations, and make some comments about their energetics and other properties. Related results that we find include the observation that the screening length formula L_s T ~ (1-v^2)^{1/4} obtained previousl…
QCD perturbation theory ignores the compact nature of $SU(3)$ gauge group that gives rise to the periodic $θ$-vacuum of the theory. We propose to modify the gluon propagator to reconcile perturbation theory with the anomalous Ward identities for the topological current in the $θ$-vacuum. As a result, the gluon couples to the Veneziano ghost describing the tunneling transitions between different Chern-Simons sectors of the vacuum; we call the emerging gluon dressed by ghost loops a "glost". We evaluate the glost propagator and find that it has the form $G(p) = (p^2 + χ_{top}/p^2)^{-1}$ where $χ…
Common lore suggests that $N$-color QCD with massive quarks has no useful order parameters which can be non-trivial at zero baryon density. However, such order parameters do exist when there are $n_f$ quark flavors with a common mass and $d\equiv\gcd(n_f,N) > 1$. These theories have a $\mathbb Z_d$ color-flavor center symmetry arising from intertwined color center transformations and cyclic flavor permutations. The symmetry realization depends on the temperature, baryon chemical potential and value of $n_f/N$, with implications for conformal window studies and dense quark matter.
