Untitled

2013

Phys. Rev. C

We examine the interplay between the percolation and the deconfinement phase transitions of Yang-Mills matter at finite temperature, quark chemical potential μ Q , and number of colors N c . We find that, whereas the critical N c for percolation goes down with density, the critical N c for confinement generally goes up. Because of this, Yang-Mills matter falls into two qualitatively different regimes: the "low-N c limit," where percolation does not occur because matter deconfines before it percolates, and the "high-N c limit," where there are three distinct phases-confined, deconfined, and confined but percolating matter-characterizing Yang-Mills matter at finite temperature and density. The latter can be thought of as the recently conjectured "quarkyonic phase." We attempt an estimate of the critical N c to see if the percolating phase can occur in our world. We find that, while percolation will not occur at normal nuclear density as in the large-N c limit, a sliver of the phase diagram in N c , energy density and baryonic density where percolation occurs while confinement persists is possible. We conclude by speculating on the phenomenological properties of such percolating "quarkyonic" matter and suggesting avenues by which to study it quantitatively and to look for it in experiment.

Section: The Confinement Phase Transition In N C -ρ B -E Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike in Refs. [31][32][33], the quarkyonic transition is thought to be distinct from deconfinement, to be found in lower energy heavy-ion scans [42][43][44][45] at low temperature but high baryochemical potential μ B = N c μ Q (a description of deconfinement at finite density as percolation was also postulated in Refs. [46,47]).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Quarkyonic percolation and deconfinement at finite density and number of colors

Lottini

2013

Phys. Rev. C

“…Such matter can hopefully be produced in heavy ion collisions [1][2][3][4], and is thought to exhibit a rich phenomenology. The latter includes one [5] or more [6] critical points, spinodal instabilities [7], precursors to color superconductivity [8], separation between chiral symmetry and confinement [9][10][11][12][13][14] chirally inhomogeneus phases [15][16][17][18], new phases [19] etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors of [39] interpret phase II as the well studied nuclear gas liquid phase transition [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30], rather than as a new undiscovered phase. If this interpretation is correct, than searching for the quarkyonic phase and/or the triple point separating I,II,III at upcoming low energy experiments [1][2][3][4] would be fruitless, as in our N c = 3 world the liquid-gas phase has been extensively studied theoretically [23][24][25][26][27] and pinpointed experimentally [28][29][30], and its transition line is understood to lie well below T c , so that no triple point exists.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nuclear liquid-gas phase transition at largeNcin the van der Waals approximation

Mishustin

2010

Phys. Rev. C

We examine the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition at large number of colors (Nc) within the framework of the Van Der Waals (VdW) model. We argue that the VdW equation is appropriate at describing inter-nucleon forces , and discuss how each parameter scales with Nc. We demonstrate that Nc = 3 ( our world ) is not large with respect to the other dimensionless scale relevant to baryonic matter, the number of neighbors in a dense system NN . Consequently, we show that the liquid-gas phase transition looks dramatically different at Nc → ∞ with respect of our world: The critical point temperature becomes of the order of ΛQCD rather than below it. The critical point density becomes of the order of the baryonic density, rather than an order of magnitude below it. These are precisely the characteristics usually associated with the "Quarkyonic phase". We therefore conjecture that quarkyonic matter is simply the large Nc limit of the nuclear liquid, and the interplay between Nc and NN is the reason why the nuclear liquid in our world is so different from quarkyonic matter. We conclude by suggesting ways our conjecture can be tested in future lattice measurements.

“…Such matter can hopefully be produced in heavy-ion collisions [2][3][4][5], and is thought to exhibit a rich phenomenology: critical points [6], instabilities [7], precursors to color superconductivity [8], separation between chiral symmetry and confinement [9][10][11], chirally inhomogeneous phases [12,13], new phases [14], etc.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

How large is “large N c ” for nuclear matter?

Mishustin

2012

Phys. Atom. Nuclei

We argue that a so far neglected dimensionless scale, the number of neighbors in a closely packed system, is relevant for the convergence of the large-N c expansion at high chemical potential. It is only when the number of colors is large w.r.t. this new scale (∼O (10)) that a convergent large-N c limit is reached. This provides an explanation as to why the large-N c expansion, qualitatively successful in vacuum QCD, fails to describe high baryo-chemical potential systems, such as nuclear matter. It also means that phenomenological claims about high-density matter based on large-N c extrapolations should be treated with caution. This work is based on [1].