Lattice simulations have demonstrated that a background (electro)magnetic field reduces the chiral/deconfinement transition temperature of quantum chromodynamics for eB < 1 GeV^2. On the level of observables, this reduction manifests itself in an enhancement of the Polyakov loop and in a suppression of the light quark condensates (inverse magnetic catalysis) in the transition region. In this paper, we report on lattice simulations of 1+1+1-flavor QCD at an unprecedentedly high value of the magnetic field eB = 3.25 GeV^2. Based on the behavior of various observables, it is shown that even at this extremely strong field, inverse magnetic catalysis prevails and the transition, albeit becoming sharper, remains an analytic crossover. In addition, we develop an algorithm to directly simulate the asymptotically strong magnetic field limit of QCD. We find strong evidence for a first-order deconfinement phase transition in this limiting theory, implying the presence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram. Based on the available lattice data, we estimate the location of the critical point.
The transition between the hadronic phase and the quark gluon plasma phase at nonzero temperature and quark chemical potentials is studied within the large-Nc expansion of QCD.
We explore the phase diagram of two-flavor QCD at imaginary values of baryon and isospin chemical potentials analyzing the thermodynamic potential of QCD analytically and that of the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model numerically. QCD has no pion condensation at imaginary baryon and isospin chemical potentials, and therefore has discrete symmetries that are not present at real baryon and isospin chemical potentials. The PNJL model possesses all the discrete symmetries. The PNJL model can reproduce qualitatively lattice QCD data presented very lately.
A general discussion is presented of the possible symmetries responsible for confinement of color and of their evidence in lattice simulations. The consequences on the phase diagram of $QCD$ are also analyzed.
We show the universality of phase diagrams in QCD and QCD-like theories through the large-N_c equivalence. The whole phase diagrams are identical between QCD at finite isospin chemical potential and SO(2N_c) and Sp(2N_c) gauge theories at finite baryon chemical potential. In the chiral limit, they are also identical to that of QCD at finite chiral chemical potential. Outside the pion or diquark condensed phase in these theories, the universality of phase diagrams is applicable to QCD at finite baryon chemical potential. We further argue that the universality may work approximately even for N_c…
Theta vacuum effects on the QCD phase structure in the μ-T plane are studied by using the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model and its extension, where μis the quark chemical potential and T is temperature, respectively. As the parameter θof the theta vacuum increases, the chiral transition becomes stronger. For large θ, it eventually becomes first order even at zero μ.
We derive exact constraints relating QCD at nonzero baryon chemical potential and temperature to QCD at nonzero isospin chemical potential and temperature, a theory which can be simulated by conventional methods. These results challenge the consistency of dynamical models of superconductivity and superfluidity in QCD.
We investigate the phase diagram of QCD with heavy quarks at finite temperature and chemical potential in the context of background field methods. In particular, we use a massive extension of the Landau-DeWitt gauge which is motivated by previous studies of the deconfinement phase transition in pure Yang-Mills theories. We show that a simple one-loop calculation is able to capture the richness of the phase diagram in the heavy quark region, both at real and imaginary chemical potential. Moreover, dimensionless ratios of quantities directly measurable in numerical simulations are in good agreem…
The present knowledge of the QCD phase diagram based on simulations of lattice QCD is summarised. The main questions are whether there is a critical point in the QCD phase diagram and whether it is related to a chiral phase transition. It is shown that QCD at imaginary chemical potentials has a rich phase structure, which can be determined in a controlled way without sign problem and which severely constrains the phase structure at real chemical potentials.
We elucidate that the phase diagram of massless $N$-flavor QCD under $\mathbb{Z}_N$ flavor-twisted boundary condition (massless $\mathbb{Z}_N$-QCD) is constrained by an 't Hooft anomaly involving two-form gauge fields. As a consequence, massless $\mathbb{Z}_N$-QCD turns out to realize persistent order at any temperatures and quark chemical potentials, namely, the symmetric and gapped phase is strictly forbidden. This is the first result on the finite-$(T,μ)$ phase diagram in QCD-type theories based on anomaly matching related to center and discrete axial symmetries.
We test the reliability of the the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model, comparing the model result with the lattice data at nonzero imaginary chemical potential. The PNJL model with the vector-type four-quark and scalar-type eight-quark interactions reproduces the lattice data on the pseudocritical temperatures of the deconfinement and chiral phase transitions. The QCD phase diagram in the real chemical potential region is predicted by the PNJL model. The critical endpoint survives, even if the vector-type four-quark interaction is taken into account.
Neither the chiral limit nor finite baryon density can be simulated directly in lattice QCD, which severely limits our understanding of the QCD phase diagram. In this review I collect results for the phase structure in an extended parameter space of QCD, with varying numbers of flavours, quark masses, colours, lattice spacings, imaginary and isospin chemical potentials. Such studies help in understanding the underlying symmetries and degrees of freedom, and are beginning to provide a consistent picture constraining the possibilities for the physical phase diagram.
Two parameters that have a strong influence on the finite temperature QCD transition, and play an important role in various physical scenarios are the quark density and the external magnetic field. The effect of these parameters on the thermal properties of QCD is discussed, and an overview of the latest lattice results is given.
I review the progress made in recent years with functional methods in our understanding of the QCD phase diagram. In particular I discuss a renormalisation group approach to QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential. Results include the location of the confinement-deconfinement phase transition/cross-over and the chiral phase transition/cross-over lines, their nature as well as their interrelation.
We summarize our current understanding of the connection between the QCD phase line and the chemical freeze-out curve as deduced from thermal analyses of yields of particles produced in central collisions between relativistic nuclei.
We draw the three-flavor phase diagram as a function of light- and strange-quark masses for both zero and imaginary quark-number chemical potential, using the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with an effective four-quark vertex depending on the Polyakov loop. The model prediction is qualitatively consistent with 2+1 flavor lattice QCD prediction at zero chemical potential and with degenerate three-flavor lattice QCD prediction at imaginary chemical potential.
The outline of the two lectures given in "Dense Matter School 2015" is presented. After an overview on the relevance of the phase diagram to heavy-ion collisions and compact star phenomena, I show some basic formulae to discuss the QCD phase diagram in the mean field treatment of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. Next, I introduce the strong-coupling lattice QCD, which is one of the promising methods to access the QCD phase diagram including the first order phase boundary. In the last part, I discuss the QCD phase diagram in asymmetric matter, which should be formed in compact star phenomena.
I review recent new lattice QCD results on a few selected topics which are relevant to the heavy ion physics community. Special emphasis is put on the QCD phase diagram towards the chiral limit and at nonzero baryon density as well as the fate of quarkonia and heavy quark drag coefficients.
Some consequences of the analyticity of the free energy (pressure) of QCD at finite chemical potential are deduced. These include a method for numerical exploration of the full phase diagram by a novel use of simulations at imaginary chemical potential to extract Yang-Lee zeroes of the grand-canonical partition function. We make use of, and comment on, CPT symmetries, positivity of non-linear susceptibilities and the finiteness of screening lengths. We also comment on the structure of zeroes expected for the usual picture of the phases of QCD, following a discussion of the physics of imaginary…
We propose a method to study lattice QCD at non-vanishing temperature (T) and chemical potential (μ). We use n_f=2+1 dynamical staggered quarks with semi-realistic masses on L_t=4 lattices. The critical endpoint (E) of QCD on the Re(μ)-T plane is located. We calculate the pressure (p), the energy density (ε) and the baryon density (n_B) of QCD at non-vanishing T and μ.
The aim of this review is to summarize the contemporary understanding of the QCD phase diagram as a function of temperature and baryo-chemical potential. The focus is on recent theoretical developments due to lattice simulations of the phase diagram.
The phase diagram of lattice QCD in the strong coupling limit can be measured in the full $μ$-$T$ plane, also in the chiral limit. In particular, the phase diagram in the chiral limit features a tricritical point at some $(μ_c,T_c)$. This point may be related to the critical end point expected in the QCD phase diagram. We discuss the gauge corrections to the phase diagram at strong coupling and compare our findings with various possible scenarios in continuum QCD. We comment on the possibility that the tricritical point at strong coupling is connected to the tricritical point in the continuum,…
We use the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model to study the effects of the isospin chemical potential on the QCD phase diagram at nonzero temperature and baryon chemical potential. We find that the phase diagram is qualitatively altered by a small isospin chemical potential. There are two first order phase transitions that end in two critical endpoints, and there are two crossovers at low baryon chemical potential. These results have important consequences for systems where both baryon and isospin chemical potentials are nonzero, such as heavy ion collision experiments. Our results are in complete agree…
In the last years there has been remarkable progress in the comparison of experimental data on the shape of event-by-event distributions of conserved quantities and lattice thermodynamic predictions based on the grand canonical ensemble. In this talk we discuss how the QCD crossover temperature and the freezeout curve are extracted from the analysis of fluctuations. We report that one can also go further and locate the QCD critical point already from published data. We also list the systematics which must be brought under control in future.
We develop a lattice diagrammatic technique for calculating the chiral condensate of QCD at infinite coupling inspired by recent work of Tomboulis and earlier work from the 80's. The technique involves calculating the contribution of gauge link diagrams formed from all possible combinations of a number of sub-diagram types. This is achieved by performing a resummation, using a truncated number of sub-diagram types. We show how to calculate the relevant sub-diagrams, including a new technique for evaluating group integrals with arbitrary number of gauge link elements, using Young Projectors. In…
We compute the QCD phase diagram in the plane of the chiral chemical potential and temperature using the linear sigma model coupled to quarks and to the Polyakov loop. The chiral chemical potential accounts for effects of imbalanced chirality due to QCD sphaleron transitions which may emerge in heavy-ion collisions. We found three effects caused by the chiral chemical potential: the imbalanced chirality (i) tightens the link between deconfinement and chiral phase transitions; (ii) lowers the common critical temperature; (iii) strengthens the order of the phase transition by converting the cros…
Recent progress and the latest results on the bulk thermodynamic properties of QCD matter from lattice are reviewed. In particular, I will stress upon the fact that lattice techniques are now entering into precision era where they can provide us with new insights on even the microscopic degrees of freedom in different phases of QCD. I will discuss some instances, from the recent studies of topological fluctuations and screening masses. The progress towards understanding the effects of anomalous $U_A(1)$ symmetry on the chiral crossover transition and transport properties of QCD matter will als…
QCD, the theory of the strong interactions, involves quarks interacting with non-Abelian gluon fields. This theory has many features that are difficult to impossible to see in conventional diagrammatic perturbation theory. This includes quark confinement, mass generation, and chiral symmetry breaking. This paper is a colloquium level overview of the framework for understanding how these effects come about.
The physics of the QCD phase diagram is discussed in view from heavy-ion collisions, compact astrophysical phenomena, lattice QCD and chiral effective models. We find that (T,mu_B) region probed in heavy-ion collisions and the black hole formation processes covers most of the critical point locations predicted in recent lattice QCD Monte-Carlo simulations and chiral effective models of QCD. We also discuss the consistency of the statistical model results and dynamical model description.
We present results on the QCD phase diagram for mu_B <= pi T. Our simulations are performed with an imaginary chemical potential mu_I for which the fermion determinant is positive. On an 8^3 x 4 lattice with 2 flavors of staggered quarks, we map out the phase diagram and identify the pseudo-critical temperature T_c(mu_I). For mu_I/T <= pi/3, this is an analytic function, whose Taylor expansion is found to converge rapidly, with truncation errors far smaller than statistical ones. The truncated series may then be continued to real mu, yielding the corresponding phase diagram for mu_B <~ 500 MeV…
We present unambiguous evidence from lattice simulations of QCD with three degenerate quark species for two tricritical points in the (T,m) phase diagram at fixed imaginary μ/T=iπ/3 mod 2π/3, one in the light and one in the heavy mass regime. These represent the boundaries of the chiral and deconfinement critical lines continued to imaginary chemical potential, respectively. It is demonstrated that the shape of the deconfinement critical line for real chemical potentials is dictated by tricritical scaling and implies the weakening of the deconfinement transition with real chemical potential. T…
In addition to temperature and baryon chemical potential there are other parameters that matter in the real quark matter. One of them is isospin asymmetry which does exist in nature, for example, in the compact stars and in heavy ion collisions. The chiral imbalance, the difference between left- and right-handed quarks, is another phenomenon that could occur in quark matter. We have shown that lattice QCD results support the existence of the approximate duality in real QCD. The rise of pseudo-critical temperature with increase of chiral chemical potential $μ_{5}$ (the much debated effect recen…
I report on the current status of QCD phase diagram at vanishing baryon density. I focus on the QCD phase diagram with three degenerate quark flavor using Highly Improved Staggered Quarks on $N_τ=6$ lattices. No evidence of a first order phase transition in the pion mass window of $80\lesssim m_π \lesssim 230 $MeV is found. The pion mass at the critical point where the chiral first order phase transition ends is estimated to be $m^c_π \lesssim 45$ MeV.
We summarize our recent results for the (T,mu)-phase diagram of N_f=3 QCD. Finding a strong variation of the critical endpoint mu_c with the quark mass m, we point out that an endpoint within reach of experiment requires fine-tuned quark masses. We further discuss the strategy and first data towards extending our results to the physical N_f=2+1 theory.
We report our recent results on the QCD phase diagram obtained from the lattice QCD simulation. The location of the phase boundary between hadronic and QGP phases in the two-flavor QCD phase diagram is investigated. The imaginary chemical potential approach is employed, which is based on Monte Carlo simulations of the QCD with imaginary chemical potential and analytic continuation to the real chemical potential region.
For reliable comparison of the standard model prediction to the muon g-2 with its experimental value, the hadronic light-by-light scattering (HLbL) contribution must be calculated by lattice QCD simulation. HLbL contribution has many types of disconnected-type diagrams. Here, we start with recalling the point that must be taken care of in every method to calculate them by lattice QCD, and present one concrete method called nonperturbative QED method.
In recent years there has been much progress on the investigation of the QCD phase diagram with lattice QCD simulations. In this review I focus on the developments in the last two years. Especially the addition of external influences or new parameter ranges yield an increasing number of interesting results. I discuss the progress for small, finite densities from both analytical continuation and Complex Langevin simulations, for heavy quark bound states (quarkonium), the dependence on the quark masses (Columbia plot) and the influence of a magnetic field. Many of these conditions are relevant f…
At temperatures well above the transition, QCD admits a thermally reduced version in 3D, which reproduces the long distance physics. We analyze the phase diagram, point out the relevance of Z(3) symmetry in the location of the transition and suggest a way out to reconcile this with the data. Related to this symmetry is the existence of an observable, the Z(N) wall, or rather its 3D version, and discuss some of its advantages over other observables.
We extend to the clover improved lattice formulation of QCD the resummation of cactus diagrams, i.e. a certain class of tadpole-like gauge invariant diagrams. Cactus resummation yields an improved perturbative expansion. We apply it to the lattice renormalization of some two-fermion operators improving their one-loop perturbative estimates.
We show how to perform a resummation, to all orders in perturbation theory, of a certain class of gauge invariant diagrams in Lattice QCD. These diagrams are often largely responsible for lattice artifacts. Our resummation leads to an improved perturbative expansion. Applied to a number of cases of interest, this expansion yields results remarkably close to corresponding nonperturbative estimates.
We determine the phase diagram of QCD on the μ-T plane for small to moderate chemical potentials. Two transition lines are defined with two quantities, the chiral condensate and the strange quark number susceptibility. The calculations are carried out on N_t =6,8 and 10 lattices generated with a Symanzik improved gauge and stout-link improved 2+1 flavor staggered fermion action using physical quark masses. After carrying out the continuum extrapolation we find that both quantities result in a similar curvature of the transition line. Furthermore, our results indicate that in leading order the …
The sign problem of QCD prevents standard lattice simulations to determine the phase diagram of strong interactions with a finite chemical potential directly. Complex Langevin simulations provide an alternative method to sample path integrals with complex weights. We report on our ongoing project to determine the phase diagram of QCD in the limit of heavy quarks (HDQCD) using Complex Langevin simulations.
We propose a new framework for investigating two-flavor lattice QCD with finite temperature and density. We consider the Karsten-Wilczek fermion formulation, in which a species-dependent imaginary chemical potential term can reduce the number of species to two without losing chiral symmetry. This lattice discretization is useful for study on finite-($T$,$μ$) QCD since its discrete symmetries are appropriate for the case. To show its applicability, we study strong-coupling lattice QCD with temperature and chemical potential. We derive the effective potential of the scalar meson field and obtain…
I present recent results from lattice simulations of SU(2) gauge theory with Nf=2 Wilson quark flavors, at non-zero quark chemical potential. The thermodynamic equation of state is discussed along with the nature of the high density matter which forms. It is conjectured that deconfinement may mean different things for bulk and Fermi surface phenomena.
We analyze the phase diagram of QCD with two massless quark flavors in the space of temperature, T, and chemical potential of the baryon charge, mu, using available experimental knowledge of QCD, insights gained from various models, as well as general and model independent arguments including continuity, universality, and thermodynamic relations. A random matrix model is used to describe the chiral symmetry restoration phase transition at finite T and mu. In agreement with general arguments, this model predicts a tricritical point in the T mu plane. Certain critical properties at such a point …
I review recent lattice QCD results on a few selected topics which are relevant to the heavy ion physics community. Special emphasis is put on the QCD equation of state at vanishing and nonzero baryon chemical potential, the onset of deconfinement of open strange and charmed hadrons, the contribution from experimentally not yet observed hadrons to the thermodynamics of the hadronic gas and their influence on freeze-out conditions of strange and light-quark hadrons.
We study the phase diagram of quark matter at finite temperature (T) and chemical potential (mu) in the strong coupling region of lattice QCD for color SU(3). Baryon has effects to extend the hadron phase to a larger mu direction relative to Tc at low temperatures in the strong coupling limit. With the 1/g^2 corrections, Tc is found to decrease rapidly as g decreases, and the shape of the phase diagram becomes closer to that expected in the real world.
Using a canonical formalism, we determine the equation of state and the phase diagram of eight-flavour QCD, as a function of temperature and isospin density. Two mechanisms are at work: Bose condensation of pions at high density, and deconfinement at high temperature. We study their interplay and find that on our small and coarse lattice the first order deconfinement transition appears to end at a critical point at finite density. We investigate the strength of the overlap and of the sign problems and discuss implications for the baryonic density case.
We calculate the QCD cross-over temperature, the equation of state and fluctuations of conserved charges at finite density by analytical continuation from imaginary to real chemical potentials. Our calculations are based on new continuum extrapolated lattice simulations using the 4stout staggered actions with a lattice resolution up to $N_t=16$. The simulation parameters are tuned such that the strangeness neutrality is maintained, as it is in heavy ion collisions.
We study an effective theory for QCD at finite temperature and density which contains the leading center symmetric and center symmetry breaking terms. The effective theory is studied in a flux representation where the complex phase problem is absent and the model becomes accessible to Monte Carlo techniques also at finite chemical potential. We simulate the system using a generalized Prokof'ev-Svistunov worm algorithm and compare the results to a low temperature expansion. The phase diagram is determined as a function of temperature, chemical potential and quark mass. Shape and quark mass depe…
We review our results for the QCD phase diagram at baryonic chemical potential mu_B \leq pi T. Our simulations are performed with an imaginary chemical potential mu_I for which the fermion determinant is positive. For 2 flavors of staggered quarks, we map out the phase diagram and identify the pseudo-critical temperature T_c(mu_I). For mu_I/T \leq pi/3, this is an analytic function, whose Taylor expansion is found to converge rapidly, with truncation errors far smaller than statistical ones. The truncated series may then be continued to real mu, yielding the corresponding phase diagram for mu_…
Monte Carlo methods cannot probe far into the QCD phase diagram with a real chemical potential, due to the famous sign problem. Complex Langevin simulations, using adaptive step-size scaling and gauge cooling, are suited for sampling path integrals with complex weights. We report here on tests of the deconfinement transition in pure Yang-Mills SU(3) simulations and present an update on the QCD phase diagram in the limit of heavy and dense quarks.
