We derive a holographic prediction of the deconfinement temperature $T_c$ at vanishing chemical potential within a simplest AdS/QCD model with dynamical dilaton. Our analysis leads to a linear relation between $T_c^4$ and the gluon condensate. After normalizing this relation to the lattice data for $SU(3)$ pure gauge theory, the standard phenomenological value of gluon condensate from QCD sum rules leads to the prediction $T_c=156$ MeV which is in a perfect agreement with the modern lattice results and freeze-out temperature measured by the ALICE Collaboration.
We argue that deconfinement in AdS/QCD models occurs via a first order Hawking-Page type phase transition between a low temperature thermal AdS space and a high temperature black hole. Such a result is consistent with the expected temperature independence, to leading order in 1/N_c, of the meson spectrum and spatial Wilson loops below the deconfinement temperature. As a byproduct, we obtain model dependent deconfinement temperatures T_c in the hard and soft wall models of AdS/QCD. Our result for T_c in the soft wall model is close to a recent lattice prediction.
We investigate the thermodynamics of the flavour sector of the Sakai-Sugimoto model in the presence of a magnetic field. Renormalizing the euclidean Dirac-Born-Infeld action in the antipodal limit, we find for the confined and deconfined phases positive contributions to the pressures that grow with the magnetic field. We also obtain positive magnetic susceptibilities indicating a paramagnetic behaviour of quarks. Using these results we estimate a λ^2/N_c correction to the deconfinement temperature that decreases as a function of the magnetic field.
In the framework of a holographic QCD approach we study an influence of matters on the deconfinement temperature, $T_c$. We first consider quark flavor number ($N_f$) dependence of $T_c$. We observe that $T_c$ decreases with $N_f$, which is consistent with a lattice QCD result. We also delve into how the quark number density $ρ_q$ affects the value of $T_c$. We find that $T_c$ drops with increasing $ρ_q$. In both cases, we confirm that the contributions from quarks are suppressed by $1/N_c$, as it should be, compared to the ones from a gravitational action (pure Yang-Mills).
Using two different models from holographic quantum chromodynamics (QCD) we study the deconfinement phase transition in $2+1$ dimensions in the presence of a magnetic field. Working in 2+1 dimensions lead us to {\sl exact} solutions on the magnetic field, in contrast with the case of 3+1 dimensions where the solutions on the magnetic field are perturbative. As our main result we predict a critical magnetic field $B_c$ where the deconfinement critical temperature vanishes. For weak fields meaning $B<B_c$ we find that the critical temperature decreases with increasing magnetic field indicating a…
Based on the IR-improved bulk holographic AdS/QCD model which provides a consistent prediction for the mass spectra of resonance scalar, pseudoscalar, vector and axial vector mesons, we investigate its finite temperature behavior. By analyzing the spectral function of mesons and fitting it with a Breit-Wigner form, we perform an analysis for the critical temperature of mesons. The back-reaction effects of bulk vacuum are considered, the thermal mass spectral function of resonance mesons is calculated based on the back-reaction improved action. A reasonable melting temperature is found to be $T…
We study the gravity dual of four dimensional pure Yang-Mills theory through D4 branes, as proposed by Witten (holographic QCD). In this holographic QCD, it has been widely believed that the confinement phase in the pure Yang-Mills theory corresponds to the AdS D4 soliton in gravity and the deconfinement phase corresponds to the black D4 brane. We inspect this conjecture carefully and show that the correspondence between the black D4 brane and the deconfinement phase is not correct. Instead, by using a slightly different set up, we find an alternative gravity solution called "localized soliton…
We scrutinize various holographic estimations of the deconfinement temperature within the bottom-up AdS/QCD models. A special emphasis is put on the recent idea of isospectral potentials in the holographic approach. It is demonstrated that different models from an isospectral family (i.e., the models leading to identical predictions for the spectrum of hadrons with fixed quantum numbers) result in different predictions for the deconfinement temperature. This difference is found to be quite small in the scalar glueball channel but very large in the vector meson channel which is often used for f…
The interrelation between the deconfinement temperature of hadron medium and parameters of radial Regge trajectories within the bottom-up holographic models for QCD is scrutinized. We show that the lattice data on the deconfinement temperature can yield a powerful restriction on the spectrum of excited mesons and glueballs within the framework of holographic approach. The best phenomenological agreement and theoretical self-consistency are achieved if the scalar meson $f_0(1500)$ is considered as the lightest glueball.
We study confinement-deconfinement phase transition in a holographic soft-wall QCD model. By solving the Einstein-Maxwell-scalar system analytically, we obtain the phase structure of the black hole backgrounds. We then impose probe open strings in such background to investigate the confinement-deconfinement phase transition from different open string configurations under various temperatures and chemical potentials. Furthermore, we study the Wilson loop by calculating the minimal surface of the probing open string world-sheet and obtain the Cornell potential in confinement phase analytically.
We discuss the phase structure of N D4 branes wrapped on a temporal (Euclidean) and a spatial circle, in terms of the near-horizon AdS geometries. This system has been studied previously to understand four dimensional pure SU(N) Yang-Mills theory (YM4) through holography. In the usual treatment of the subject, the phase transition between the AdS soliton and the black D4 brane is interpreted as the strong coupling continuation of the confinement/deconfinement transition in YM4. We show that this interpretation is not valid, since the black D4 brane and the deconfinement phase of YM4 have diffe…
The problem of self-consistent estimates of the deconfinement temperature Tc in the framework of the bottom-up holographic approach to QCD is scrutinized. It is shown that the standard soft wall model gives Tc for planar gluodynamics around 260 MeV in a good agreement with the lattice data. The extensions of soft wall model adjusted for descriptions of realistic meson spectra result in a broad range of predictions. This uncertainty is related with a poor experimental information on the radially excited mesons.
Contribution of the quark back reaction to the deconfinement phase transition is studied in the thermodynamical potential of the gluonic sector which consists of the gluon and ghost propagators calculated in the lattice QCD simulations. Starting from QCD thermodynamic potential, we define the gluonic potential in the leading-order of the 2PI formalism, which can describe the deconfinement phase transition. Then the gluonic potential can be written by using the microscopic characters; the gluon and ghost propagators in Landau gauge fixing. To include effects of the quark back reaction, we calcu…
We present a simple and intuitive picture for the deconfinement of quarks and gluons at finite temperature: as the temperature increases, QCD behaves like QED at T=0. We show this by calculating the QCD coupling constant as a function of the temperature and of the external momenta used to probe quarks and gluons.
We discuss the entropy carried by a quark-antiquark pair, in particular across the deconfinement transition. We therefore rely on a self-consistent solution to Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity, capable of mimicking essential features of QCD. In particular we introduce a novel model that still captures well the QCD confinement and deconfinement phases, while allowing the introduction of a temperature in a phase which resembles the confined phase, this thanks to it being dual to a small black hole. We pay due attention to some subtleties of such model. We confirm the lattice picture of a strong …
We present a five-dimensional anisotropic holographic model for light quarks supported by Einstein-dilaton-two-Maxwell action. This model generalizing isotropic holographic model with light quarks is characterized by a Van der Waals-like phase transition between small and large black holes. We compare the location of the phase transition for Wilson loops with the positions of the phase transition related to the background instability and describe the QCD phase diagram in the thermodynamic plane -- temperature $T$ and chemical potential $μ$. The Cornell potential behavior in this anisotropic mo…
Charge fluctuations studied on event-by-event basis have been recently suggested to provide a signal of the equilibrium quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions at high energies. It is argued that the fluctuations generated at the early collision stage when the energy is released can fake the signal.
The frequency dependent conductivity $σ(ω)$ of the strongly coupled Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) is estimated using a bottom up holographic model that can adequately describe recent lattice data for QCD thermodynamics at zero chemical potential. Different choices for the coupling between the bulk gauge field and the other bulk fields that define the background (the metric and a scalar field) are used in order to fit the lattice data for the electric charge susceptibility $χ_2^Q/T^2$. The ratio $σ_{DC}/T$ is found to vary near the deconfinement transition in a way that is similar to recent lattice …
We discuss a general five-dimensional completely anisotropic holographic model with three different spatial scale factors, characterized by a Van der Waals-like phase transition between small and large black holes. A peculiar feature of the model is the relation between anisotropy of the background and anisotropy of the colliding heavy ions geometry. We calculate the holographic entanglement entropy (HEE) of the slab-shaped region, the orientation of which relatively to the beams line and the impact parameter is characterized by the Euler angles. We study the dependences of the HEE and its den…
We give an analytical derivation of the confinement/deconfinement phase transition at finite temperature in the $SU(N)$ Yang-Mills theory in the $D$-dimensional space time for $D>2$. We elucidate what is the mechanism for quark confinement and deconfinement at finite temperature and why the phase transition occurs at a certain temperature. For this purpose, we use a novel reformulation of the Yang-Mills theory which allows the gauge-invariant gluonic mass term and calculate analytically the effective potential of the Polyakov loop average concretely for the $SU(2)$ and $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills theor…
We evaluate the longitudinal or (chromo-)electric Yang-Mills gluon propagator in the recently proposed center-symmetric Landau gauge at finite temperature [1]. To model the effect of the Gribov copies in the infrared, we use the Curci-Ferrari model which, in turn, allows us to rely on perturbative calculations. At one-loop order in the SU(2) case, the so-obtained longitudinal gluon propagator provides a clear signature for Z2 center-symmetry breaking with a singular behavior, characteristic of a continuous phase transition. This is in sharp contrast with what is found within the standard Landa…
We review construction of the improved holographic models for QCD-like confining gauge theories and their applications to the physics of the Quark-gluon plasma. We also review recent progress in this area of research. The lecture notes start from the vacuum structure of these theories, then develop thermodynamic and hydrodynamic observables and end with more advanced topics such as the holographic QCD in the presence of external magnetic fields. This is a summary of the lectures presented at the 56th Cracow School of Theoretical Physics in Spring 2016 at Zakopane, Poland.
The aim of this work is to study the holographic dual to the gauge theory with a nonzero gluon condensate. We check for consistency the holographic way of describing the condensate and calculate the expectation value of a small Wilson loop in the presence of the gluon condensate, thus obtaining the relevant coefficient in the operator product expansion of the small loop in different holographic models. We also study the effect of the condensate on the Gross-Ooguri phase transition in the correlator of two circular Wilson loops in parallel and concentric configurations. In the numerical study o…
An upper limit to the critical density for the transition to the deconfined phase, at zero temperature, has been evaluated by analyzing the behavior of the gluon condensate in nuclear matter. Due to the non linear baryon density effects, the upper limit to the critical density, ρ_c turns out about nine times the saturation density, rho_0 for the value of the gluon condensate in vacuum <(α_s/π) G^2>=0.012 GeV^4. For neutron matter ρ_c \simeq 8.5 ρ_0. The dependence of the critical density on the value of the gluon condensate in vacuum is studied.
At high temperatures, strongly interacting matter becomes a plasma of deconfined quarks and gluons. In statistical QCD, deconfinement and the properties of the resulting quark-gluon plasma can be investigated by studying the in-medium behaviour of heavy quark bound states. In high energy nuclear interactions, quarkonia probe different aspects of the medium formed in the collision. We survey the results of recent charmonium production studies in SPS and RHIC experiments.
Recently Herzog has shown that deconfinement of AdS/QCD can be realized, in the hard-wall model where the small radius region is removed in the asymptotically AdS space, via a first order Hawking-Page phase transition between a low temperature phase given by a pure AdS geometry and a high temperature phase given by the AdS black hole in Poincare coordinates. In this paper we first extend Herzog's work to the hard wall AdS/QCD model in curved spaces by studying the thermodynamics of AdS black holes with spherical or negative constant curvature horizon, dual to a non-supersymmetric Yang-Mills th…
We study the deconfinement phase transition in $ (2+1) $-dimensional holographic $ SU(N) $ gauge theories in the presence of an external magnetic field from the holographic hard and soft wall models. We obtain exact solutions for the critical temperature of the deconfinement transition for any range of magnetic field. As a consequence, we find a critical magnetic field $(B_c)$, in which the critical temperature $(T_c)$ vanishes; for $B<B_c$ we have an inverse magnetic catalysis and for $ B>B_c $ we have a magnetic catalysis.
The theory of confinement and deconfinement is discussed as based on the properties of the QCD vacuum. The latter are described by field correlators of colour-electric and colour-magnetic fields in the vacuum, which can be calculated analytically and on the lattice. As a result one obtains a self-consistent theory of the confined region in the (mu,T) plane with realistic hadron properties. At the boundary of the confining region, the colour-electric confining correlator vanishes, and the remaining correlators describe strong nonperturbative dynamics in the deconfined region with (weakly) bound…
In earlier work, we studied holographic entanglement entropy in QCD phases using a dynamical Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity model whose dual boundary theory mimics essential features of QCD above and below deconfinement. The model although displays subtle differences compared to the standard QCD phases, however, it introduces a notion of temperature in the phase below the deconfinement critical temperature and captures quite well the entanglement and thermodynamic properties of QCD phases. Here we extend our analysis to study the mutual and $n$-partite information by considering $n$ strips w…
We put forward an alternative way to estimate the deconfinement temperature in bottom-up holographic models. The deconfinement in AdS/QCD is related to the Hawking-Page phase transition, in which the critical Hawking temperature is identified with the deconfinement one in the gauge theory. The numeric estimation of the latter is only possible when the parameters of a $5D$ dual model are previously determined from consistency with other physical aspects, standardly, providing a description of the QCD resonances. The traditional way to fix parameters in the simplest AdS/QCD models is to reproduc…
We study a gauge invariant order parameter for deconfinement and the chiral condensate in SU(2) and SU(3) Yang-Mills theory in the vicinity of the deconfinement phase transition using the Landau gauge quark and gluon propagators. We determine the gluon propagator from lattice calculations and the quark propagator from its Dyson-Schwinger equation, using the gluon propagator as input. The critical temperature and a deconfinement order parameter are extracted from the gluon propagator and from the dependency of the quark propagator on the temporal boundary conditions. The chiral transition is de…
Using the holographic correspondence as a tool, we study the dynamics of first-order phase transitions in strongly coupled gauge theories at finite temperature. Considering an evolution from the large to the small temperature phase, we compute the nucleation rate of bubbles of true vacuum in the metastable phase. For this purpose, we find the relevant configurations (bounces) interpolating between the vacua and we compute the related effective actions. We start by revisiting the compact Randall-Sundrum model at high temperature. Using holographic renormalization, we compute the kinetic term in…
The equation of state of SU(3) Yang-Mills theory can be modelled by an effective $Z_3-$symmetric potential $V(\vertϕ\vert,ϕ^3+ϕ^{3*}, T)$ depending on the temperature $T$ and on a scalar field $ϕ$ -- the averaged Polyakov loop. Allowing $ϕ$ to be dynamical opens the way to the study of spatially localized classical configurations of the Polyakov loop. We first show that spherically symmetric static Q-balls exist in the range $(1-1.21)\times T_c$, $T_c$ being the deconfinement temperature. Then we argue that Q-holes solutions, if any are unphysical within our framework. Finally we couple the Po…
In the holographic model of QCD, theta dependence sharply changes at the point of confinement deconfinement phase transition. In large N QCD such a change in theta behavior can be related to the breakdown of the instanton expansion at some critical temperature T_c. Associating this temperature with confinement-deconfinement phase transition leads to the description of the latter in terms of dissociation of instantons into the fractionally charged instanton quarks. To elucidate this picture, we introduce the nonvanishing chiral condensate in the deconfining phase and assume a specific lagrangia…
We propose a general method for finding a string-like meson spectrum which is based on a certain condition for the breaking of closed gluon string. A model is constructed that successfully realizes the proposed method. The model is based on the holographic Soft Wall model for QCD and the use of the Wilson confinement criterion. We applied our approach to the vector and scalar cases and obtained numerical predictions for the intercepts of corresponding Regge like radial meson spectra. A good agreement is obtained both with the existing experimental data and with some other known phenomenologica…
A lattice calculation is presented for the electrical conductivity of the QCD plasma with 2+1 dynamical flavours at nonzero temperature. We employ the conserved lattice current on anisotropic lattices using a tadpole-improved clover action and study the behaviour of the conductivity over a wide range of temperatures, both below and above the deconfining transition. The conductivity is extracted from a spectral-function analysis using the Maximal Entropy Method and a discussion of its systematics is provided.
We estimate the ratio of the thermalization time over the freeze-out time using a holographic AdS-Vaidya model for quark-gluon plasma formed in the heavy ion collisions. In the model the process of thermalization is described as formation of the black hole in AdS space while dethermalization process, related with the freeze-out, as the black hole evaporation due to the Hawking radiation that is modeled by the Vaidya metric with a negative mass. In this model the thermalization takes place only at small scales and absent in the infrared region. At small scales the system tends towards a state o…
A comprehensive study of the color singlet heavy quark states above T_c is given, using the Field Correlator Method (FCM) for nonperturbative Q{\bar Q} potentials and the screened Coulomb potential with the T-dependent Debye radius. Using these potentials we calculate binding energies and melting temperatures of heavy mesons and baryons in the deconfined phase of quark-gluon plasma and the J/ψand Upsilon disintegration cross sections via the gluon absorption.
We study QCD finite energy sum rules (FESR) for the axial-vector current correlator in the presence of a magnetic field, in the weak field limit and at zero temperature. We find that the perturbative QCD as well as the hadronic contribution to the sum rules get explicit magnetic field-dependent corrections and that these in turn induce a magnetic field dependence on the deconfinement phenomenological parameter s_0 and on the gluon condensate. The leading corrections turn out to be quadratic in the field strength. We find from the dimension d=2 first FESR that the magnetic field dependence of s…
In this paper we study the confinement/deconfinement transition in lattice $SU(2)$ QCD at finite quark density and zero temperature. The simulations are performed on an $32^4$ lattice with rooted staggered fermions at a lattice spacing $a = 0.044 \mathrm{~fm}$. This small lattice spacing allowed us to reach very large baryon density (up to quark chemical potential $μ_q > 2000 \mathrm{~MeV}$) avoiding strong lattice artifacts. In the region $μ_q\sim 1000 \mathrm{~MeV}$ we observe for the first time the confinement/deconfinement transition which manifests itself in rising of the Polyakov loop an…
We obtain the gluon parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the proton within the extended light-front holographic QCD framework, where the proton couples with the spin-two Pomeron in Anti-de Sitter space, together with constraints imposed by the Veneziano model. The gluon helicity asymmetry, after satisfying the perturbative QCD constraints at small and large longitudinal momentum regions, agrees with existing experimental measurements. The polarized gluon distribution is consistent with global analyses. We predict the gluon helicity contribution to the proton spin, $ΔG=0.221^{+0.056}_{-0.044…
We continue the study of a recently constructed holographic QCD model supplemented with magnetic field. We consider the holographic dual of a quark, anti-quark pair and investigate its entropy beyond the deconfinement phase transition in terms of interquark distance, temperature and magnetic field. We obtain a clear magnetic field dependence in the strongly decreasing entropy near deconfinement and in the entropy variation for growing interquark separation. We uncover various supporting evidences for inverse magnetic catalysis. The emergent entropic force is found to become stronger with magne…
We revisit confinement/deconfinement transition in holographic QCD to consider the back-reaction of a bulk scalar field. The bulk scalar field is dual to a quark bi-linear operator $\bar qq$, and it encodes explicit and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking of QCD. To perform the Hawking-Page transition analysis with the back-reaction, we first obtain a deformed AdS black hole solution due to a finite quark mass. Through the Hawking-Page analysis with the back-reacted geometry, we study the flavor number $N_f$ and finite quark mass dependence of the critical temperature of the QCD confinement/d…
We consider a simple massive extension of the Landau-DeWitt gauge for SU($N$) Yang-Mills theory. We compute the corresponding one-loop effective potential for a temporal background gluon field at finite temperature. At this order the background field is simply related to the Polyakov loop, the order parameter of the deconfinement transition. Our perturbative calculation correctly describes a quark confining phase at low temperature and a phase transition of second order for $N=2$ and weakly first order for $N=3$. Our estimates for the transition temperatures are in qualitative agreement with v…
The state of art in studying thermodynamic properties of hot and dense nuclear matter is reviewed with the special emphasis on the confinement-deconfinement transition between hadron matter and quark-gluon plasma. The most popular models used for describing deconfinement are analysed, including statistical bootstrap models, pure phase models, the model of clustered quarks, and the string-flip potential model. Predictions of these models are compared with the lattice numerical simulations. It is concluded that precursor fluctuation effects must be taken into account in order to get a realistic …
We propose a simple explanation for the connection between chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement in QCD at high temperature. In the Higgs description of the QCD vacuum both spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and effective gluon masses are generated by the condensate of a color octet quark-antiquark pair. The transition to the high temperature state proceeds by the melting of this condensate. Quarks and gluons become (approximately) massless at the same critical temperature. For instanton-dominated effective multiquark interactions and three light quarks with equal mass we find a firs…
We investigate the quark-gluon mixed condensate based on an AdS/QCD model. Introducing a holographic field dual to the operator for the quark-gluon mixed condensate, we obtain the corresponding classical equation of motion. Taking the mixed condensate as an additional free parameter, we show that the present scheme reproduces very well experimental data. A fixed value of the mixed condensate is in good agreement with that of the QCD sum rules.
We conjecture that the confinement- deconfinement phase transition in QCD at large number of colors $N$ and $N_f\ll N$ at $T\neq 0$ and $μ\neq 0$ is triggered by the drastic change in $θ$ behavior. The conjecture is motivated by the holographic model of QCD where confinement -deconfinement phase transition indeed happens precisely at $T=T_c$ where $θ$ dependence experiences a sudden change in behavior. The conjecture is also supported by quantum field theory arguments when the instanton calculations (which trigger the $θ$ dependence) are under complete theoretical control for $T>T_c$, suddenly…
Holography provides a novel method to study the physics of Quark Gluon Plasmas, complementary to the ordinary field theory and lattice approaches. In this context, we analyze the informations that can be obtained for strongly coupled Plasmas containing dynamical flavors, also in the presence of a finite baryon chemical potential. In particular, we discuss the jet quenching and the hydrodynamic transport coefficients.
In statistical QCD, color deconfinement and the properties of the quark-gluon plasma determine the in-medium behavior of heavy quark bound states. In high energy nuclear collisions, charmonia probe the partonic medium produced in the early stages of the interaction. We survey the present theoretical status and provide a critical evaluation of the charmonium production measurements in experiments at the CERN-SPS and the BNL-RHIC.
By introducing the dressed Polayakov loop or dual chiral condensate as a candidate order parameter to describe the deconfinement phase transition for light flavors, we discuss the interplay between the chiral and deconfinement phase transitions, and propose the possible QCD phase diagram at finite temperature and density. We also introduce a dynamical gluodynamic model with dimension-2 gluon condensate, which can describe the color electric deconfinement as well as color magnetic confinement.
In the deconfinement phase of QCD quarks and gluons interact with the dense stochastic colour-magnetic vacuum. We consider the dynamics of quarks in this deconfinement phase using the Field Correlators Method and derive an effective nonperturbative inter-quark potential, in addition to the usual perturbative short-ranged interaction. We find the resulting angular-momentum-dependent interaction to be attractive enough to maintain bound states and, for light quarks (and gluons), to cause emission of quark and gluon pairs. Possible consequences for the strong interacting quark--gluon plasma are b…
The lowest dimensional gluon condensate $G_2$ is analysed at finite temperature and chemical potential using a bottom/up holographic model of QCD. Starting from the free energy of the model, pressure, entropy and quark density are obtained. Moreover, at zero chemical potential, the temporal and spatial Wilson loops at low temperature are computed; they are related to the (chromo-)electric and magnetic components of $G_2$, respectively.
