The chiral phase transition of the quark sector of QCD is investigated within the Hamiltonian approach in Coulomb gauge. Finite temperature T is introduced by compactifying one spatial dimension, which makes all thermodynamical quantities accessible from the ground state on the spatial manifold $\small\mathbb{R}^2 \times S^1(1/T)$. Neglecting the coupling between quarks and transversal gluons, the equations of motion of the quark sector are solved numerically and the chiral quark condensate is evaluated and compared to the results of the usual canonical approach to finite-temperature Hamiltonian QCD based on the density operator of the grand canonical ensemble. For zero bare quark masses, we find a second-order chiral phase transition with a critical temperature of about 92 MeV. If the Coulomb string tension is adjusted to reproduce the phenomenological value of the quark condensate, the critical temperature increases to 118 MeV.
We show, without using semiclassical approximations, that, in high-temperature QCD with chiral symmetry restoration and U(1) axial symmetry breaking, the partition function for sufficiently light quarks can be expressed as an ensemble of noninteracting objects with topological charge that obey the Poisson statistics. We argue that the topological objects are "quasi-instantons" (rather than bare instantons) taking into account quantum effects. Our result is valid even close to the (pseudo)critical temperature of the chiral phase transition.
Chiral symmetry restoration high in the hadron spectra is expected but it remains to be confirmed both in lattice QCD computations and in experiments. Recently, a theorem was derived, relating chiral symmetry restoration high in the hadron spectra to the spontaneous generation of the dynamical quark mass in QCD. We refine the theorem in the case of static-light mesons. Utilizing chiral quark model computations and lattice QCD results for the spectrum of mesons composed by a static antiquark and a light quark, we explore chiral symmetry restoration in the spectrum and the quark running mass m(k…
We overview two interconnected topics: possible effective restoration of chiral symmetry in highly excited hadrons and possible existence of confined but chirally symmetric matter at low temperatures and high densities.
We investigate numerically chiral symmetry restoration at finite temperature in the planar limit in the deconfined phase, both when it is stable and when the system is supercooled. We find chiral symmetry restoration at $T_χ= T_d$, where $T_d$ is the temperature of the deconfinement transition in pure gauge theory and $T_χ< T_d$ in the supercooled deconfined phase. In the stable case the spectrum of the Dirac operator opens a gap in a discontinuous manner and in the supercooled phase the gap seems to vanish continuously.
It is shown that in the large $N_c$ limit the light baryon spectrum exhibits the chiral restoration phase transition at high enough excitation energy. Such a phase transition is evidenced by the systematical parity doublets observed in the upper part of $N$ and $Δ$ spectra.
Quenched SU(3) lattice gauge theory shows three phase transitions, namely the chiral, the deconfinement and the Z3 phase transition. Knowing whether or not the chiral and the deconfinement phase transition occur at the same temperature for all Z3 sectors could be crucial to understand the underlying microscopic dynamics. We use the existence of a gap in the Dirac spectrum as an order parameter for the restoration of chiral symmetry. We find that the spectral gap opens up at the same critical temperature in all Z3 sectors in contrast to earlier claims in the literature.
Restoration of chiral and $U(1)_A$ symmetries in excited hadrons is reviewed. Implications of the OPE as well as of the semiclassical expansion for this phenomenon are discussed. A solvable model of the 't Hooft type in 3+1 dimensions is presented, which demonstrates a fast restoration of both chiral and $U(1)_A$ symmetries at larger spins and radial excitations.
Using the quark eigenmodes computed on the lattice with the overlap-Dirac operator, we investigate the spatial distribution of the chiral condensate around static color sources corresponding to quark-antiquark and three-quark systems. A flux structure of chromo fields appears in the presence of such color charges. The magnitude of the chiral condensate is reduced inside the color flux, which implies partial restoration of chiral symmetry inside hadrons. Taking a static baryon source in a periodic box as a toy model of nuclear matter, we estimate the magnitude of the chiral symmetry restoration…
We present and analyze a new set of Ward Identities which shed light on the distinction between different patterns of chiral symmetry restoration in QCD, namely $O(4)$ vs $O(4)\times U(1)_A$. The degeneracy of chiral partners for all scalar and pseudoscalar meson nonet members are studied through their corresponding correlators. Around chiral symmetry degeneration of $O(4)$ partners, our analysis predicts that $U(1)_A$ partners are also degenerated. Our analysis also leads to $I=1/2$ scalar-pseudoscalar partner degeneration at exact chiral restoration, and supports ideal mixing between the $η$…
We propose that in QCD with dynamical quarks, colour deconfinement occurs when an external field induced by the chiral condensate strongly aligns the Polyakov loop. This effect sets in at the chiral symmetry restoration temperature T-chi and thus makes deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration coincide. The predicted singular behaviour of Polyakov loop susceptibilities at T-chi is shown to be supported by finite temperature lattice calculations.
With proper profiles of the scalar potential and the dilaton field, for the first time, the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum and its restoration at finite temperature are correctly realized in the holographic QCD framework. In the chiral limit, a nonzero chiral condensate develops in the vacuum and decreases with temperature, and the phase transition is of 2nd order for two-flavor case and of 1st order for three-flavor case. In the case of explicit chiral symmetry breaking, in two-flavor case, the 2nd order phase transition turns to crossover with any nonzero current quark ma…
By using the overlap-Dirac operator eigenmodes, we investigate spatial distribution of the chiral condensate around static color sources for both quark-antiquark and three quark systems. In the presence of color sources, a characteristic flux-tube structure appears among them, suggesting a linear confining potential. We show that the magnitude of the condensate is reduced inside the color flux, which indicates the partial restoration of chiral symmetry inside the "hadrons." Considering a periodic box containing a static baryon source, which mimics the "nuclear matter," we estimate the chiral s…
A fast restoration of chiral symmetry in excited mesons is demonstrated. A minimal "realistic" chirally symmetric confining model is used, where the only interaction between quarks is the linear instantaneous Lorentz-vector confining potential. Chiral symmetry breaking is generated via the nonperturbative resummation of valence quarks self-energy loops and the meson bound states are obtained from the Bethe-Salpeter equation. The excited mesons fall into approximate chiral multiplets and lie on the approximately linear radial and angular Regge trajectories, though a significant deviation from t…
We analyze the chiral phase transition of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model in the cold and dense region on the lattice developing the Grassmann version of the anisotropic tensor renormalization group algorithm. The model is formulated with the Kogut--Susskind fermion action. We use the chiral condensate as an order parameter to investigate the restoration of the chiral symmetry. The first-order chiral phase transition is clearly observed in the dense region at vanishing temperature with $μ/T\sim O(10^3)$ on a large volume of $V=1024^4$. We also present the results for the equation of state.
We investigate the fate of the Roberge-Weiss endpoint transition and its connection with the restoration of chiral symmetry as the chiral limit of $N_f = 2+1$ QCD is approached. We adopt a stout staggered discretization on lattices with $N_t = 4$ sites in the temporal direction; the chiral limit is approached maintaining a constant physical value of the strange-to-light mass ratio and exploring three different light quark masses, corresponding to pseudo-Goldstone pion masses $m_π\simeq 100, 70$ and 50 MeV around the transition. A finite size scaling analysis provides evidence that the transiti…
At non-zero lattice spacing the flavor symmetry of staggered fermions is broken to a discrete subgroup. We show that in the chiral limit the flavor symmetry of the pion effective Lagrangian enlarges to an SO(4) subgroup of the continuum SU(4) symmetry. This provides an explanation for observed degeneracies in the pion spectrum.
In the planar limit, in the deconfined phase, the Euclidean Dirac operator has a spectral gap around zero. We show that functions of eigenvalues close to the spectral edge, which are independent of common rescalings and shifts gauge configuration by gauge configuration, have distributions described by a Gaussian Hermitian matrix model. However, combinations of eigenvalues that are scale and shift invariant only on the average, do not match this matrix model.
We propose a picture that the chiral phase transition at zero quark mass and the deconfinement transition at infinite quark mass are continuously connected. This gives a simple interpretation on the coincidence of the pseudo-critical temperatures observed in lattice QCD. We discuss a possible dynamical mechanism behind the simultaneous crossovers and show the results in a model study.
Two flavour massless QCD has a second order chiral transition which has been argued to belong to the universality class of the $3d$ O(4) spin model. The arguments have been questioned recently, and the transition was claimed to be mean field behaved. We discuss this issue at the example of the $3d$ Gross-Neveu model. A solution is obtained by applying various well established analytical methods.
Physics of the low-lying and high-lying hadrons in the light flavor sector is reviewed. While the low-lying hadrons are strongly affected by the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry, in the high-lying hadrons the chiral symmetry is restored. A manifestation of the chiral symmetry restoration in excited hadrons is a persistence of the chiral multiplet structure in both baryon and meson spectra. Meson and baryon chiral multiplets are classified. A relation between the chiral symmetry restoration and the string picture of excited hadrons is discussed.
Domain Wall Fermions utilize an extra space time dimension to provide a method for restoring the regularization induced chiral symmetry breaking in lattice vector gauge theories even at finite lattice spacing. The breaking is restored at an exponential rate as the size of the extra dimension increases. As a precursor to lattice QCD studies the dependence of the restoration rate to the other parameters of the theory and, in particular, the lattice spacing is investigated in the context of the two flavor lattice Schwinger model.
In this article we study restoration of chiral symmetry at finite temperature for quark matter with a chiral chemical potential, $μ_5$, by means of a nonlocal Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. This model allows to introduce in the simplest way possible a Euclidean momentum, $p_E$, dependent quark mass function which decays (neglecting logarithms) as $1/p_E^2$ for large $p_E$, in agreement with asymptotic behaviour expected in QCD in presence of a nonperturbative quark condensate. We focus on the critical temperature for chiral symmetry restoration in the chiral limit, $T_c$, versus $μ_5$, as well as o…
In preparation of lattice studies of the two-color QCD phase diagram we study chiral restoration and deconfinement at finite temperature with two flavors of staggered quarks using an RHMC algorithm on GPUs. We first study unquenching effects in local Polyakov loop distributions, and the Polyakov loop potential obtained via Legendre transformation, in a fixed-scale approach for heavier quarks. We also present the chiral condensate and the corresponding susceptibility over the lattice coupling across the chiral transition for lighter quarks. Using Ferrenberg-Swendsen reweighting we extract the m…
The chirally improved (CI) quark propagator in Landau gauge is calculated in two flavor lattice Quantum Chromodynamics. Its wave-function renormalization function $Z(p^2)$ and mass function $M(p^2)$ are studied. To minimize lattice artifacts, tree-level improvement of the propagator and tree-level correction of the lattice dressing functions is applied. Subsequently the CI quark propagator under Dirac operator low-mode removal is investigated. The dynamically generated mass in the infrared domain of the mass function is found to dissolve continuously as a function of the reduction level and st…
The light-quark correlator in the axial-vector channel is used, in conjunction with finite energy QCD sum rules at finite temperature, in order to (a) establish a relation between chiral-symmetry restoration and deconfinement, and (b) determine the temperature behavior of the $a_1(1260)$ width and coupling. Results indicate that deconfinement takes place at a slightly lower temperature than chiral-symmetry restoration, although this difference is not significant given the accuracy of the method. The behaviour of the $a_1(1260)$ parameters is consistent with quark-gluon deconfinement, as the wi…
We discuss the phases of QCD in the parameter space spanned by the number of light flavours and the temperature with respect to the realisation of chiral and conformal symmetries. The intriguing interplay of these symmetries is best studied by means of lattice simulations, and some selected results from our recent work are presented here.
We discuss the critical behaviour of strongly interacting matter close to the QCD phase transition. Emphasis is put on a presentation of results from lattice calculations that illustrate deconfining as well as chiral symmetry restoring features of the phase transition. We show that both transitions coincide in QCD while they fall apart in an SU(3) gauge theory coupled to adjoint fermions. We also discuss some results on deconfinement in quenched QCD at non-zero baryon number.
It has recently been suggested that the observed structure of parity doublets, seen in the spectrum of highly excited baryons, may be due to the effective restoration of chiral symmetry for these states. This chiral symmetry restoration high in the spectrum is consistent with the concept of quark-hadron duality. Moreover, if QCD dynamics implies the linear Regge trajectories for highly excited baryons, then the MacDowell symmetry requires the parity doubling to appear, which shows that linear Regge trajectories and chiral symmetry restoration are well compatible. On the contrary, in the low-en…
We propose a chiral symmetry restoration mechanism in monolayer graphene, in analogy with the strongly coupled gauge theory. The chiral (sublattice) symmetry of graphene, which is spontaneously broken under the effectively strong Coulomb interaction, is restored by introducing the Kekule-patterned lattice distortion externally. Such a phase transition is investigated analytically by the lattice gauge theory model with the original honeycomb lattice structure. We discuss the relation between the chiral phase transition and the spectral gap amplitude.
Three aspects of symmetry structure of lattice chiral fermion in the overlap formalism are discussed. By the weak coupling expansion of the overlap Dirac operator, the axial anomaly associated to the chiral transformation proposed by Luescher is evaluated and is shown to have the correct form of the topological charge density for perturbative backgrounds. Next we discuss the exponential suppression of the self-energy correction of the lightest mode in the domain-wall fermion/truncated overlap. Finally, we consider a supersymmetric extension of the overlap formula in the case of the chiral mult…
It is argued that an appearance of the near parity doublets in the upper part of the light baryon spectrum is an evidence for the chiral symmetry restoration in the regime where a typical momentum of quarks is around the chiral symmetry restoration scale. At high enough baryon excitation energy the nontrivial gap solution, which signals the chiral symmetry breaking regime, disappears and the chiral symmetry should be restored. Thus one observes a phase transition in the upper part of the light baryon spectrum. The average kinetic energy of the constituent quarks in this region is just around t…
In this paper, we discuss the transition to the semiclassical regime in excited hadrons, and consequently, the restoration of chiral symmetry for these states. We use a generalised Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with the interaction between quarks in the form of the instantaneous Lorentz-vector confining potential. This model is known to provide spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in the vacuum via the standard selfenergy loops for valence quarks. It has been shown recently that the effective single-quark potential is of the Lorentz-scalar nature, for the low-lying hadrons, while, for the high-l…
In this article we study restoration of chiral symmetry at finite temperature for quark matter with a chiral chemical potential, $μ_5$, by means of a quark-meson model with vacuum fluctuations included. Vacuum fluctuations give a divergent contribution to the vacuum energy, so the latter has to be renormalized before computing physical quantities. The vacuum term is important for restoration of chiral symmetry at finite temperature and $μ_5\neq0$, therefore we present several plausible renormalization schemes for the ultraviolet divergences at $μ_5\neq0$. Then we compute the critical temperatu…
Using the overlap-Dirac eigenmodes, we study the spatial distribution of the chiral condensate around static color sources in lattice QCD. Between the color sources, there appears a color-flux tube, which leads a linear confining potential. By measuring a local value of the chiral condensate, we show that the magnitude of the condensate is reduced inside the flux-tube for both quark-antiquark and three-quark systems. These results suggest that chiral symmetry is partially restored in the flux-tube. The reduction of the condensate is estimated to be about 20 $\sim$ 30% at the center of the flux…
We overview a possible mechanism for confining but chirally symmetric matter at low temperatures and large densities. As a new development we employ a diffused quark Fermi surface and show that such diffusion does not destroy possible existence of a confining but chirally symmetric matter at low temperatures and large density.
In this Addendum to our recent paper, Phys. Rev. D 77, 054027 (2008), we point out that a chiral restoration phase transition in a quarkyonic matter at low temperatures is of second order within a manifestly confining and chirally symmetric large $N_c$ model. This result is qualitatively different as compared to NJL and NJL-like models that are not confining and might have some implications for the existence or nonexistence of the critical end point in the QCD phase diagram.
The imposition of Dirichlet boundary conditions in lattice computations obstructs the formation of a chiral condensate. We use chiral perturbation theory and meson models to address the effect of a Dirichlet boundary on chiral symmetry breaking. While pions are the longest-range modes in QCD, the restoration of chiral symmetry due to a boundary is shown not to depend upon the pion Compton wavelength but rather on that of the sigma meson. Power-law finite size corrections are exposed, and require prohibitively large lattices to overcome. We further speculate on the frustration of the chiral con…
We compare axial charges of excited nucleons, as predicted by the chiral symmetry restoration picture, with the traditional, moderately successful for the ground-state baryons SU(6) symmetry. The axial charges of excited nucleons can (and will) be measured in lattice QCD simulations, and comparison of the lattice results with the two different symmetry schemes will give an insight on the origins of the excited hadron masses as well as on interrelations of chiral symmetry and confinement.
We analyze the restoration pattern of the members of the scalar and pseudoscalar meson nonets under chiral $O(4)$ and $U(1)_A$ symmetries. For that purpose, we exploit QCD Ward Identities (WI), which allow one to relate susceptibilities with quark condensates, as well as susceptibility differences with meson vertices. In addition, we consider the low-energy realization of QCD provided by $U(3)$ Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) at finite temperature to perform a full analysis of the different correlators involved. Our analysis suggests $U(1)_A$ partner restoration if chiral symmetry partners a…
We present results on both the restoration of the spontaneously broken chiral symmetry and the effective restoration of the anomalously broken U(1)_A symmetry in finite temperature QCD at zero chemical potential using lattice QCD. We employ domain wall fermions on lattices with fixed temporal extent N_τ= 8 and spatial extent N_σ= 16 in a temperature range of T = 139 - 195 MeV, corresponding to lattice spacings of a \approx 0.12 - 0.18 fm. In these calculations, we include two degenerate light quarks and a strange quark at fixed pion mass m_π= 200 MeV. The strange quark mass is set near its phy…
We propose the Schwinger-Dyson (SD) formalism based on lattice QCD, i.e., LQCD-based SD formalism, for the study of dynamical chiral-symmetry breaking in QCD. We extract the kernel function K(p^2) in the SD equation from the lattice data of the quark propagator in the Landau gauge. As remarkable features, we find infrared vanishing and intermediate enhancement of the kernel function K(p^2) in the SD equation. We apply the LQCD-based SD equation to thermal QCD, and calculate the quark mass function at the finite temperature. We find chiral symmetry restoration at the critical temperature T_c \s…
We investigate the (partial) chiral restoration at finite temperature (T) under the strong external magnetic field B_0 of the SU(2) light-flavor QCD matter. To this end, we employ the instanton-liquid QCD vacuum configuration accompanied with the linear Schwinger method for inducing the magnetic field. The Harrington-Shepard caloron solution is used to modify the instanton parameters, i.e. the average instanton size (rho) and inter-instanton distance (R), as functions of T. In addition, we include the meson-loop corrections (MLC) as the large-N_c corrections because they are critical for repro…
QCD string picture of highly excited hadrons very naturally explains parity doubling once the chiral symmetry is restored high in the spectrum. In particular, the spin-orbit and tensor interactions of quarks at the ends of the string, related to dynamics of the string, vanish. High in the spectrum there appears higher degree of degeneracy, namely parity doublets with different angular momentum cluster around energy of the string in the given quantum state.
