At large baryon number density, it is likely that the ground state of QCD is a color-flavor-locked phase with a K0 condensate. The CFL+K0 phase is known to support superconducting vortex strings, and it has been previously suggested that it may also support vortons, which are superconducting vortex rings. We reexamine the question of the stability of vortons, taking into account electromagnetic effects, which make leading-order contributions to vorton dynamics but were not investigated in previous work. We find that current-carrying and electrically charged vortons can be stabilized either by their angular momentum, by Coulomb repulsion, or by a combination of both effects.
We consider the the effect of the electron cloud about a vorton in the CFL-$K^0$ high-density phase by numerically solving the ultrarelativistic Thomas-Fermi equation about a toroidal charge. Including electrons removes the electric monopole contribution to the energy, and noticeably decreases the equilibrium radius of these stable vortex loops.
Quark matter at astrophysical densities may contain stable vortices due to the spontaneous breaking of hypercharge symmetry by kaon condensation. We argue that these vortices could be both charged and electrically superconducting. Current carrying loops (vortons) could be long lived and play a role in the magnetic and transport properties of this matter. We provide a scenario for vorton formation in protoneutron stars.
Quantum Hadrodynamics provides a useful framework for investigating dense matter, yet it breaks down easily when strangeness carrying baryons are introduced into the calculations, as the baryon effective masses become negative due to large meson field potentials. The Quark-Meson Coupling model overcomes this issue by incorporating the quark structure of the nucleon, thus allowing for a feedback between the the nuclei and the interaction with the meson fields. With the inclusion of this feature, QMC provides a successful description of finite nuclei and nuclear matter. We present the latest par…
We have pointed out the possibility of quantum Hall effect or quantum patterns of transportation in a degenerate strongly magnetized quark matter, which might be expected inside a highly dense compact star. An anisotropic pattern of electrical conductivity and resistivity tensor in classical and quantum cases is explored by considering cyclotron motion and Landau quantization respectively. With increasing magnetic field, classical to quantum transitions are realized through enhanced/reduced resistivity/conductivity with jumping pattern. Considering QCD relaxation time scale of 10 fm, $eB\appro…
Superfluid vortices in the color-flavor-locked (CFL) phase of dense quark matter are known to be energetically disfavored relative to well-separated triplets of "semi-superfluid" color flux tubes. However, the short-range interaction (metastable versus unstable) has not been established. In this paper we perform numerical calculations using the effective theory of the condensate field, mapping the regions in the parameter space of coupling constants where the vortices are metastable versus unstable. For the case of zero gauge coupling we analytically identify a candidate for the unstable mode,…
We revisit the quark-mass density-dependent model -- a phenomenological equation of state for deconfined quark matter in the high-density low-temperature regime -- and show that thermodynamic inconsistencies that have plagued the model for decades, can be solved if the model is formulated in the canonical ensemble instead of the grand canonical one. Within the new formulation, the minimum of the energy per baryon occurs at zero pressure, and the Euler's relation is verified. Adopting a typical mass-formula, we first analyze in detail a simple model with one particle species. We show that a ``b…
We discuss the recent progress in calculating the properties of 'hybrid stars' (stellar objects similar to neutron stars, classified by the incorporation of non-nucleonic degrees of freedom, including but not limited to hyperons and/or a quark-matter core) using the octet-baryon Quark-Meson Coupling (QMC) model. The version of QMC used is a recent improvement which includes the in-medium modification of the quark-quark hyperfine interaction.
I discuss recent developments in our understanding of the color-superconducting phases of cold, dense quark matter. I describe the phase diagram as a function of density and the strange quark mass, and outline some ideas about possible observational consequences of these exotic phases.
We provide a summary of our current knowledge of the phase structure of very dense quark matter. We concentrate on the question how the ground state at asymptotically high density -- color-flavor-locked (CFL) matter -- is modified as the density is lowered. We discuss the nature of the quasi-particle excitations, and present work on the transport properties of dense QCD matter.
A general effective action for quark matter at nonzero temperature and/or nonzero density is derived. Irrelevant quark modes are distinguished from relevant quark modes, and hard from soft gluon modes, by introducing two separate cut-offs in momentum space, one for quarks, $Λ_q$, and one for gluons, $Λ_g$. Irrelevant quark modes and hard gluon modes are then exactly integrated out in the functional integral representation of the QCD partition function. Depending on the specific choice for $Λ_q$ and $Λ_g$, the resulting effective action contains well-known effective actions for hot and/or dense…
We discuss properties of quark matter at finite baryon densities and zero temperature in a Vlasov approach. We use a screened interquark Richardson's potential consistent with the indications of Lattice QCD calculations. We analyze the choices of the quark masses and the parameters entering the potential which reproduce the binding energy (B.E.) of infinite nuclear matter. There is a transition from nuclear to quark matter at densities 5 times above normal nuclear matter density. The transition could be revealed from the determination of the position of the shifted meson masses in dense baryon…
We show the realization of axion electrodynamics within the Dual Chiral Density Wave phase of dense quark matter in the presence of a magnetic field. The system exhibits an anomalous dissipantionless Hall current perpendicular to the magnetic field and an anomalous electric charge density. Connection to topological insulators and 3D optical lattices, as well as possible implications for heavy-ion collisions and neutron stars are outlined.
The case of heavy quark propagation in dense extended matter is studied in the multiple scattering formalism of the higher twist energy loss scheme. We consider the case of deep inelastic scattering off a large nucleus. The hard lepton scatters off a heavy quark fluctuation within one of the nucleons. This heavy quark then propagates through the dense medium, multiply scattering off the gluon field of the remaining nucleons in its path. We consider the fictitious process where a heavy quark propagates through the nucleus without radiation. Invoking Soft-Collinear Effective Theory power countin…
We study the color-spin interaction energy of a quark, a diquark and a baryon with their surrounding baryons and/or quark matter. This is accomplished by classifying all possible flavor and spin states of the resulting multiquark configuration in both the flavor SU(2) and SU(3) symmetric cases. We find that while the baryon has the lowest interaction energy when there is only a single surrounding baryon, the quark has the lowest interaction energy when the surrounding has more than three baryons or becomes a quark gas. As the short range nucleon-nucleon interactions are dominated by the color-…
We consider a new approach to the description of dense nuclear matter in the framework of chirally symmetric, quark-based hadron models. As previously in the Skyrme model, the dense environment is described in terms of hyperspherical cells of unit baryon number. The intrinsic curvature of these cells generates a new gauge interaction for the quark fields which mediates interactions with the ambient matter. We apply this approach to the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model, construct its curved-space quark propagator and solve the ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation for the pion. We find a high-density ph…
Heavy-ion collisions generate a huge magnetic field of the order of $10^{18} G $ for the duration of about 0.2 fm/c. This time may become an order of magnitude longer if the electrical conductivity of quark matter is large. We calculate the conductivity in the regime of high density and show that contrary to naive expectations it only weakly depends on the MF.
The phase diagram of dense quark matter with chiral imbalance is considered with the conditions of electric neutrality and $β$-equilibrium. It has been shown recently that chiral imbalance can generate charged pion condensation in dense quark matter, so it was interesting to verify that this phenomenon takes place in realistic physical scenarios such as electrically neutral matter in $β$-equilibrium, because a window of pion condensation at dense quark matter phase diagram (without chiral imbalance) predicted earlier was closed by the consideration of these conditions at the physical current q…
I report the results of a series of works on the phase diagram of theories with a different number of colors and/or quarks in a different representation than in QCD. Similarities as well as differences as compared to the real world are pointed out, focusing in particular on the interplay of confinement and chiral symmetry breaking. It will be argued that recent lattice data may provide us with a clue to understand deconfinement in cold dense quark matter.
Assuming that at sufficiently high densities the constituent quarks become relevant degrees of freedom, we study within the framework of a chiral quark model the influence of s-wave $K^-$ condensation on the quark-antiquark condensates. We find that, in linear density approximation, the presence of a $K^-$ condensate quenches the $\bar{u}u$ condensate, but that the $\bar{d}d$ condensate remains unaffected up to the chiral order under consideration. We discuss the implication of the suppressed $\bar{u}u$ condensate for flavor-dependent chiral symmetry restoration in dense matter
We calculate the equation of state for degenerate quark matter to leading order in hard-dense-loop (HDL) perturbation theory. We solve the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov equations to obtain the mass-radius relation for dense quark stars. Both the perturbative QCD and the HDL equations of state have a large variation with respect to the renormalization scale for quark chemical potential below 1 GeV which leads to large theoretical uncertainties in the quark star mass-radius relation.
Based on the method proposed in [ H. S. Zong, W. M. Sun, Phys. Rev. \textbf{D 78}, 054001 (2008)], we calculate the equation of state (EOS) of QCD at zero temperature and finite quark chemical potential under the hard-dense-loop (HDL) approximation. A comparison between the EOS under HDL approximation and the cold, perturbative EOS of QCD proposed by Fraga, Pisarski and Schaffner-Bielich is made. It is found that the pressure under HDL approximation is generally smaller than the perturbative result. In addition, we also calculate the quark number susceptibility (QNS) at finite temperature and …
Fluctuations of the color superconducting order parameter in dense quark matter at finite temperatures are investigated in terms of the phenomenological Ginzburg - Landau approach. Our estimates show that fluctuations of the di-quark gap may strongly affect some of thermodynamic quantities even far below and above the critical temperature. If the critical temperature of the di-quark phase transition were rather high one could expect a manifestation of fluctuations of the di-quark gap in the course of heavy ion collisions.
For almost twenty years the effects of a nonzero strange quark mass on the equation of state of cold and dense QCD were considered to be negligible, thereby yielding only minor corrections to the mass-radius diagram of compact stars. By computing the thermodynamic potential to first order in α_s, and including the effects of the renormalization group running of the coupling and strange quark mass, we show that corrections can be of the order of 25%, and dramatically affect the structure of compact stars.
Starting from the Kubo formula and the the QCD low energy theorem, we study the the bulk viscosity of hot dense quark matter in the PNJL model from the equation of state . We show that the bulk viscosity has a sharp peak near the chiral phase transition, and the ratio of bulk viscosity over entropy rises dramatically in the vicinity of the phase transition. These results agrees with that from lattice and other model calculations. In addition, we show that the increase of chemical potential raises the bulk viscosity.
We estimate here the electrical and Hall conductivity using a quasiparticle approach for quark matter. We use a Boltzmann kinetic approach in presence of external magnetic field. We confront the results of model calculations with Lattice QCD simulations for vanishing magnetic field. In general electrical conductivity decreases with magnetic field. The Hall conductivity on the other hand can show a non monotonic behaviour with magnetic field due to an intricate interplay of behaviour of relaxation time and strength of the magnetic field. We argue for vanishing quark chemical potential Hall cond…
We examine the phase diagram of hadronic matter when the number of colours $N_c$, as well as temperature and density, are varied. We show that in this regime a new percolation phase transition is possible, and examine the implications of this transition for extrapolations to physical QCD of the large-N_c limit.
Various thermodynamic quantities and the phase diagram of strongly interacting hot and dense magnetized quark matter are obtained with the $ 2 $-flavour Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with Polyakov loop considering finite values of the anomalous magnetic moment (AMM) of the quarks. Susceptibilities associated with constituent quark mass and traced Polyakov loop are used to evaluate chiral and deconfinement transition temperatures. It is found that, inclusion of the AMM of the quarks in presence of the background magnetic field results in a substantial decrease in the chiral as well as deconfinement …
Dilepton production rate (DPR) from hot and dense quark matter is studied in the presence of an arbitrary external magnetic field using the 2-flavour Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. The anomalous magnetic moment (AMM) of the quarks is taken into consideration while calculating the constituent quark mass as well as the DPR from the thermo-magnetic medium. An infinite number of quark Landau levels is incorporated so that no approximations are made on the strength of the background magnetic field. The analytic structure of the two point vector current correlation function in the complex energy p…
We have calculated the in-medium magnetic moments of octet baryons in the presence of hot and dense symmetric nuclear matter. Effective magnetic moments of baryons have been derived from medium modified quark masses within chiral SU(3) quark mean field model. Further, for better insight of medium modification of baryonic magnetic moments, we have considered the explicit contributions from the valence quarks, sea quarks as well as sea orbital angular momentum of sea quarks. These effects have been successful in giving the description of baryonic magnetic moments in vacuum. The magnetic moments …
We present a general approach to incorporate hadronic as well as quark degrees of freedom in a unified approach. This approach implements the correct degrees of freedom at high as well as low temperatures and densities. An effective Polyakov loop field serves as the order parameter for deconfinement. We employ a well-tested hadronic flavor-SU(3) model based on a chirally symmetric formulation that reproduces properties of ground state nuclear matter and yields good descriptions of nuclei and hypernuclei. Excluded volume effects simulating the finite size of the hadrons drive the transition to …
We compute quark and gluon propagators in 2-colour QCD at large baryon chemical potential mu. The gluon propagator is found to be antiscreened at intermediate mu and screened at large mu. The quark propagator is drastically modified in the superfluid region as a result of the formation of a superfluid gap.
The chiral phase transition of a hot and dense system of quarks is studied within a modified SU(3) NJL lagrangian that implements the QCD scale anomaly. The u- and s-quark condensates can feel or not the same chiral restoration depending on the considered region of the 3-dimension space T_c(μ_uc,μ_sc). The temperature behaviour of the pressure and of the energy and entropy densities of the u- and s-quark system is investigated. At high temperature, the non-vanishing bare s-quark mass only modifies slightly the usual behaviour associated with an ideal quark gas.
In this paper I discuss the magnetic phases of the three-flavor color superconductor. These phases can take place at different field strengths in a highly dense quark system. Given that the best natural candidates for the realization of color superconductivity are the extremely dense cores of neutron stars, which typically have very large magnetic fields, the magnetic phases here discussed could have implications for the physics of these compact objects.
We compute the transport coefficients, namely, the coefficients of shear and bulk viscosity as well as thermal conductivity for hot and dense quark matter. The calculations are performed within the Nambu- Jona Lasinio (NJL) model. The estimation of the transport coefficients is made using a quasiparticle approach of solving the Boltzmann kinetic equation within the relaxation time approximation. The transition rates are calculated in a manifestly covariant manner to estimate the thermal-averaged cross sections for quark-quark and quark-antiquark scattering. The calculations are performed for f…
We present results from simulations of Two Color QCD with two Wilson quark flavors in the presence of a quark chemical potential mu at two different lattice spacings. The equation of state, conformal anomaly, superfluid order parameter and Polyakov line are all discussed. Our results suggest that the transition from hadronic to quark matter, and that from confined to deconfined matter occur at distinct values of mu, consistent with the existence of a quarkyonic phase in this model.
The kinetics of chiral transitions in hot and dense quark matter is studied via a microscopic framework (Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model) and a phenomenological model (Ginzburg-Landau free energy). We focus on the far-from-equilibrium ordering dynamics subsequent to a quench from the massless quark phase to the massive quark phase. The morphology of the ordering system is characterized by the scaling of the order-parameter correlation function. The domain growth process obeys the Allen-Cahn growth law, $L(t)\sim t^{1/2}$. We also study the growth of bubble of the stable massive phase in a background …
We consider the equation of state of QCD at high density and zero temperature in perturbation theory to first order in the coupling constant $α_s$. We compute the thermodynamic potential including the effect of a non-vanishing mass for the strange quark and show that corrections are sizable. Renormalization group running of the coupling and the strange quark mass plays a crucial role. The structure of quark stars is dramatically modified.
The recent discoveries by the BaBar and CLEO II collaborations on the splitting between $D_s$ and ${\tilde D}_s$ which exhibited surprises in the structure of heavy-light-quark systems are connected -- via the Harada-Yamawaki "vector manifestation" of hidden local symmetry -- to chiral symmetry restoration expected to take place at some critical temperature $T_c$ in heavy-ion collisions or at some critical density $n_c$ in the deep interior of compact stars, the main theme of this symposium. This unexpected connection exemplifies the diversity of astro-hadronic phenomena discussed in this meet…
Massive neutron stars may harbor deconfined quark matter in their cores. I review some recent work on the microphysics and the phenomenology of compact stars with cores made of quark matter. This includes the equilibrium and stability of non-rotating and rapidly rotating stars, gravitational radiation from deformations in their quark cores, neutrino radiation and dichotomy of fast and slow cooling, and pulsar radio-timing anomalies.
We discuss the phase structure of dense matter, in particular the nature of the transition between hadronic and quark matter. Calculations within a Ginzburg-Landau approach show that the axial anomaly can induce a critical point in this transition region. This is possible because in three-flavor quark matter with instanton effects a chiral condensate can be added to the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase without changing the symmetries of the ground state. In (massless) two-flavor quark matter such a critical point is not possible since the corresponding color superconductor (2SC) does not break …
The kinetics of chiral transitions in quark matter is studied in a two flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. We focus on the phase ordering dynamics subsequent to a temperature quench from the massless quark phase to the massive quark phase. We study the dynamics by considering a phenomenological model (Ginzburg-Landau free-energy functional). The morphology of the ordering system is characterized by the scaling of the order-parameter correlation function.
We investigate chiral symmetry breaking and strong CP violation effects on the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter in presence of a constant magnetic field. The effect of magnetic field and strong CP violating term on the phase structure at finite temperature and density is studied within a three flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model including the Kobayashi-Maskawa-t'Hooft (KMT) determinant term. This is investigated using an explicit variational ansatz for ground state with quark anti-quark pairs leading to condensates both in scalar and pseudoscalar channels. Magnetic field enhances…
In this short review we tried to give an outline of investigations of charged pion condensation (PC) in dense baryonic (quark) matter in the framework of effective Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) type models. The possibility of charged PC phase in dense quark matter with isospin asymmetry is investigated. First, it is demonstrated that this phase can be realized in the framework of massless NJL model. But the existence of this phase is enormously fragile to the values of current quark mass %.Then, and we show that charged PC phase is forbidden in electrically neutral dense quark matter with $β$-equi…
We give a brief overview on some recent progress in quark pairings in dense quark/nuclear matter mostly developed in the past five years. We focus on following aspects in particular: the BCS-BEC crossover in the CSC phase, the baryon formation and dissociation in dense quark/nuclear matter, the Ginzburg-Landau theory for three-flavor dense matter with $U_{A}$(1) anomaly, and the collective and Nambu-Goldstone modes for the spin-one CSC.
The photon self-energy from chirally imbalanced quark matter is evaluated at finite temperature and density using the real time formulation of thermal field theory. The analytic structure is explored in detail exposing the cut structure which corresponds to a variety of physical scattering and decay processes in the medium and their thresholds. The mass of the quarks in the chiral symmetry broken phase are obtained from the gap equation of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. It is found that, in presence of finite chiral chemical potential, the chiral condensate tends to get stronger at low tempera…
As a model for nonideal behavior in the equation of state of QCD at high density, we consider cold quark matter in perturbation theory. To second order in the strong coupling constant, $α_s$, the results depend sensitively on the choice of the renormalization mass scale. Certain choices of this scale correspond to a strongly first order chiral transition, and generate quark stars with maximum masses and radii approximately half that of ordinary neutron stars. At the center of these stars, quarks are essentially massless.
We study the formation of baryons as composed of quarks and diquarks in hot and dense hadronic matter in a Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL)--type model. We first solve the Dyson-Schwinger equation for the diquark propagator and then use this to solve the Dyson-Schwinger equation for the baryon propagator. We find that stable baryon resonances exist only in the phase of broken chiral symmetry. In the chirally symmetric phase, we do not find a pole in the baryon propagator. In the color-superconducting phase, there is a pole, but is has a large decay width. The diquark does not need to be stable in ord…
We study the effect of strong magnetic field on competing chiral and diquark order parameters in a regime of moderately dense quark matter. The inter-dependence of the chiral and diquark condensates through nonperturbative quark mass and strong coupling effects is analyzed in a two-flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. In the weak magnetic field limit, our results agree qualitatively with earlier zero-field studies in the literature that find a critical coupling ratio $G_D/G_S\sim 1.1$ below which chiral or superconducting order parameters appear almost exclusively. Above the critical ratio, …
We show that $\mathbb{Z}_3$-valued particle-vortex braiding phases are present in high density quark matter. Certain mesonic and baryonic excitations, in the presence of a superfluid vortex, have orbital angular momentum quantized in units of $\hbar/3$. Such non-local topological features can distinguish phases whose realizations of global symmetries, as probed by local order parameters, are identical. If $\mathbb{Z}_3$ braiding phases and angular momentum fractionalization are absent in lower density hadronic matter, as is widely expected, then the quark matter and hadronic matter regimes of …
The results for the Debye and Meissner screening masses of the gluons and the photon in the case of neutral and beta-equilibrated dense two-flavor quark matter are presented. In the limits of the normal phase and the ideal two-flavor color superconducting phase, the screening masses coincide with the known results. Most interestingly, we find that the Meissner screening masses squared can be negative, indicating a plasma-type chromomagnetic instability in dense quark matter.
The thermal conductivity of the color-flavor locked phase of dense quark matter is calculated. The dominant contribution to the conductivity comes from photons and Nambu-Goldstone bosons associated with breaking of baryon number which are trapped in the quark core. Because of their very large mean free path the conductivity is also very large. The cooling of the quark core arises mostly from the heat flux across the surface of direct contact with the nuclear matter. As the thermal conductivity of the neighboring layer is also high, the whole interior of the star should be nearly isothermal. Ou…
It is possible that at low temperatures and large density there exists a confining matter with restored chiral symmetry, just after the dense nuclear matter with broken chiral symmetry. Such a phase has sofar been studied within a confining and chirally symmetric model assuming a rigid quark Fermi surface. In the confining quarkyonic matter, however, near the Fermi surface quarks group into color-singlet baryons. Interaction between quarks leads to a diffusion of the quark Fermi surface. Here we study effects of such diffusion and verify that it does not destroy a possible existence of a confi…
We study the generation of strong large scale magnetic fields in dense quark matter. The magnetic field growth is owing to the magnetic field instability driven by the electroweak interaction of quarks. We discuss the situation when the chiral symmetry is unbroken in the degenerate quark matter. In this case we predict the amplification of the seed magnetic field $10^{12}\,\text{G}$ to the strengths $(10^{14}-10^{15})\,\text{G}$. In our analysis we use the typical parameters of the quark matter in the core of a hybrid star or in a quark star. We also discuss the application of the obtained res…
We calculate the dimensionless Fermi liquid parameters (FLPs), $F_{0,1}^{sym}$ and $F_{0,1}^{asym}$, for spin asymmetric dense quark matter. In general, the FLPs are infrared divergent due to the exchange of massless gluons. To remove such divergences, the Hard Density Loop (HDL) corrected gluon propagator is used. The FLPs so determined are then invoked to calculate magnetic properties such as magnetization $\langle M\rangle$ and magnetic susceptibility $χ_M$ of spin polarized quark matter. Finally, we investigate the possibility of magnetic instability by studying the density dependence of $…
We present a relativistic in-medium three-body equation to study correlations in hot and dense quark matter. The equation is solved for a zero-range force for parameters close to the phase transition of QCD.
