An infrared renormalization group limit cycle in QCD

We use effective field theories to show that small increases in the up and down quark masses would move QCD very close to the critical renormalization group trajectory for an infrared limit cycle in the three-nucleon system. We conjecture that QCD can be tuned to the critical trajectory by adjusting the quark masses independently. At the critical values of the quark masses, the binding energies of the deuteron and its spin-singlet partner would be tuned to zero and the triton would have infinitely many excited states with an accumulation point at the 3-nucleon threshold. The ratio of the binding energies of successive states would approach a universal constant that is close to 515.     

On the scaling behavior of the chiral phase transition in QCD in finite and infinite volume

We study the scaling behavior of the two-flavor chiral phase transition using an effective quark–meson model. We investigate the transition between infinite-volume and finite-volume scaling behavior when the system is placed in a finite box. We can estimate effects that the finite volume and the explicit symmetry breaking by the current quark masses have on the scaling behavior which is observed in full QCD lattice simulations. The model allows us to explore large quark masses as well as the chiral limit in a wide range of volumes, and extract information about the scaling regimes. In particular, we find large scaling deviations for physical pion masses and significant finite-volume effects for pion masses that are used in current lattice simulations.     

热强子质量的有效手征拉氏量近似

从再现QCD标度反常的线性化手征拉氏量出发,使用热场动力学理论,计算了单圈近似下强子的热质量,并发现组分夸克质量和标量场质量在单圈近似下比在平均场近似下随温度的增加更快地下降,而在手征极限下,π介子在所有温度保持无质量.     

On the phase structure of QCD in a finite volume

The chiral phase transition in QCD at finite chemical potential and temperature can be characterized for small chemical potential by its curvature and the transition temperature. The curvature is accessible to QCD lattice simulations, which are always performed at finite pion masses and in finite simulation volumes. We investigate the effect of a finite volume on the curvature of the chiral phase transition line. We use functional renormalization group methods with a two flavor quark-meson model to obtain the effective action in a finite volume, including both quark and meson fluctuation effects. Depending on the chosen boundary conditions and the pion mass, we find pronounced finite-volume effects. For periodic quark boundary conditions in spatial directions, we observe a decrease in the curvature in intermediate volume sizes, which we interpret in terms of finite-volume quark effects. Our results have implications for the phase structure of QCD in a finite volume, where the location of a possible critical endpoint might be shifted compared to the infinite-volume case.     

Screening of light mesons and charmonia at high temperature

We present lattice QCD results for the screening masses of light mesons and charmonia. The lattice computations were performed with 2 + 1 flavors of improved staggered quarks using quark masses which correspond to realistic pion and kaon masses at zero temperature. For the light quark sector we have found that the screening masses in the pseudo-scalar and the isovector scalar channels do not become degenerate at the chiral crossover temperature indicating an effective non-restoration of the axial symmetry. Also the splitting between the vector and the pseudo-scalar screening masses persists even in the limit of zero lattice spacing and at a moderately high temperature around 420 MeV. In the charmonium sector our investigation shows that the screening masses of the pseudo-scalar and the vector charmonia are almost (within a few percent) equal to their zero temperature masses for temperatures less than 300 MeV. We also present results for the charmonium screening masses using periodic boundary conditions along the temporal direction and discuss their implications.     

Lattice QCD at finite temperature and density

QCD at finite temperature and density is becoming increasingly important for various experimental programmes, ranging from heavy ion physics to astro-particle physics. The non-perturbative nature of non-abelian quantum field theories at finite temperature leaves lattice QCD as the only tool by which we may hope to come to reliable predictions from first principles. This requires careful extrapolations to the thermodynamic, chiral and continuum limits in order to eliminate systematic effects introduced by the discretization procedure. After an introduction to lattice QCD at finite temperature and density, its possibilities and current systematic limitations, a review of present numerical results is given. In particular, plasma properties such as the equation of state, screening masses, static quark free energies and spectral functions are discussed, as well as the critical temperature and the QCD phase structure at zero and finite density.     

Quark mass dependence of nucleon properties and extrapolations from lattice QCD

We summarize developments concerning the quark mass dependence of nucleon magnetic moments and the axial-vector coupling constant g_A. The aim is to explore the feasibility of chiral effective field theory methods for the extrapolation of lattice QCD results, from the relatively large quark masses that can be handled in such computations down to the physically relevant range.     

Leading chiral contributions to the spin structure of the proton

The leading chiral contributions to the quark and gluon components of the proton spin are calculated using heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory. Similar calculations are done for the moments of the generalized parton distributions relevant to the quark and gluon angular momentum densities. These results provide useful insight into the role of pions in the spin structure of the nucleon and can serve as a guide for extrapolating lattice QCD calculations at large quark masses to the chiral limit.     

A new slant on hadron structure

Rather than regarding the restriction of current lattice QCD simulations to quark masses that are 5–10 times larger than those observed as a problem, we note that this presents a wonderful opportunity to deepen our understanding of QCD. Just as it has been possible to learn a great deal about QCD by treating N _c as a variable, so the study of hadron properties as a function of quark mass is leading us to a deeper appreciation of hadron structure. As examples we cite progress in using the chiral properties of QCD to connect hadron masses, magnetic moments, charge radii and structure functions calculated at large quark masses within lattice QCD with the values observed physically.     

Resonance states in an effective chiral hadronic model

With an effective chiral flavour SU(3) model we show the effect of hadronic resonances on the QCD phase diagram. We state that varying the resonance couplings to the scalar and vector fields affects the order and location of the phase transition, the possible existence of a critical end point (CEP), and the thermodynamic properties. We present (strange) quark number susceptibilities at zero baryochemical potential and at three different points at the phase transition. Comparing results to lattice QCD, we state that reasonable large vector couplings limit the phase transition to a smooth crossover ruling out a CEP.     

Mass and chemical asymmetry in QCD matter

We consider two-flavor asymmetric QCD combined with a low-energy effective model inspired by chiral perturbation theory and lattice data to investigate the effects of masses, isospin and baryon number on the pressure and the deconfinement phase transition. Remarkable agreement with lattice results is found for the critical temperature behavior. Further analyses of the cold, dense case and the influence of quark mass asymmetry are also presented.     

Spontaneous symmetry breaking in QCD

We study dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in massless QCD by the use of the generalized Hartree-Fock method. As the order parameter of chiral symmetry we choose the dynamical quark mass in the zero momentum limit which we call low energy quark mass. We calculate the low energy mass to the second order of diagrammatic expansion around shifted perturbative vacuum. We then show that the mass is finite and renormalization group invariant. After the improvement of the result by the method of effective charges we estimate the mass in the true vacuum under the gap and stationarity conditions and demonstrate that both of them produce non-zero mass proportional to a conventional scale, which breaks down the chiral symmetry.     

Phase structure of two-flavor QCD at finite chemical potential

We study the phase diagram of two-flavor QCD at imaginary chemical potentials in the chiral limit. To this end we compute order parameters for chiral symmetry breaking and quark confinement. The interrelation of quark confinement and chiral symmetry breaking is analyzed with a new order parameter for the confinement phase transition. We show that it is directly related to both the quark density as well as the Polyakov loop expectation value. Our analytical and numerical results suggest a close relation between the chiral and the confinement phase transition.     

Nonperturbative approach to chiral phase transition in chromodynamics

A nonperturbative approach aimed at the localization of the QCD chiral phase transition atT, π≠0 is presented. We identify this transition with the dynamical quark mass peculiarity which results from the selfconsistent solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the quark propagator. The specific model of the effective quark-gluon interaction, based both on the peculier interpolation for the running coupling constant and on the nonperturbative gluon magnetic and electric masses is exploited. The numerical estimates of the phase diagram are presented and it is shown that phase peculiarities are determined not only by the ultraviolet properties of QCD but also by its infrared structure. The obtained results are discussed, compared with other approaches and a possible interpretation is given.     

Nonperturbative approach to chiral phase transition in chromodynamics

A nonperturbative approach aimed at the localization of the QCD chiral phase transition atT, π≠0 is presented. We identify this transition with the dynamical quark mass peculiarity which results from the selfconsistent solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the quark propagator. The specific model of the effective quark-gluon interaction, based both on the peculier interpolation for the running coupling constant and on the nonperturbative gluon magnetic and electric masses is exploited. The numerical estimates of the phase diagram are presented and it is shown that phase peculiarities are determined not only by the ultraviolet properties of QCD but also by its infrared structure. The obtained results are discussed, compared with other approaches and a possible interpretation is given.     

Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis Effective Potential for Quark Propagator in Real-Time Thermal Field Theory and Landau Gauge

We complete the derivation of the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis effective potential for quark propagator at finite temperature and finite quark chemical potential in the real-time formalism of thermal field theory and in Landau gauge. In the approximation that the function A(p2) in inverse quark propagator is replaced by unity, by means of the running gauge coupling and the quark mass function invariant under the renormalization group in zero temperature Quantum Chromadynamics (QCD), we obtain a calculable expression for the thermal effective potential, which will be a useful means to research chiral phase transition in QCD in the real-time formalism.     

No-go theorem for critical phenomena in large-N(c) QCD

We derive some rigorous results on the chiral phase transition in QCD and QCD-like theories with a large number of colors, N(c), based on the QCD inequalities and the large-N(c) orbifold equivalence. We show that critical phenomena and associated soft modes are forbidden in flavor-symmetric QCD at finite temperature T and finite but not so large quark chemical potential μ for any nonzero quark mass. In particular, the critical point in QCD at a finite baryon chemical potential μ(B)=N(c)μ is ruled out, if the coordinate (T, μ) is outside the pion condensed phase in the corresponding phase diagram of QCD at a finite isospin chemical potential μ(I)=2μ.     

Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis Effective Potential for Quark Propagator in Real-Time Thermal Field Theory and Landau Gauge

We complete the derivation of the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis effective potentiM for quark propagator at finite temperature and finite quark chemical potential in the real-time formalism of thermal field theory and in Landau gauge. In the approximation that the function A（p^2） in inverse quark propagator is replaced by unity, by means of the running gauge coupling and the quark mass function invariant under the renormalization group in zero temperature Quantum Chromadynamics （QCD）, we obtain a calculable expression for the thermal effective potential, which will be a useful means to research chiral phase transition in QCD in the real-time formalism.     

Strong isospin breaking of the nucleon and delta masses on the lattice

Strong isospin breaking in the spectrum of the nucleons and deltas can be studied in lattice QCD with the help of chiral perturbation theory. At leading order in the chiral expansion, the mass splittings between the proton and neutron and between the deltas are linear in the quark mass difference. The next-to-leading order contributions to these splittings vanish even away from the strong-isospin limit. Therefore, any non-linear quark mass dependence of these mass splittings is a signal of the next-to-next-to-leading order mass contributions, thus providing access to low energy constants at this order. We determine the mass splittings of the nucleons and deltas in two-flavor, heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory to next-to-next-to-leading order. We also derive expressions for the nucleon and delta masses in partially quenched chiral perturbation theory to the same order. The resulting mass expressions will be useful both for the extrapolation of lattice data on baryon masses, and for the study of strong isospin breaking.     

The goldstone pion in SU(2) lattice QCD at low quark mass: Scaling and finite size effects

Results for the pion sector of an extensive numerical simulation of quenched SU(2) QCD with staggered fermions are presented. A wide range of quark masses, gauge couplings and lattice sizes is investigated. The systematic and statistical errors are carefully analyzed. Finite size effects occurring on small lattices and/or at low quark masses are studied in detail. When they are absent or weak, we find that the pion mass and coupling constant verify approximate scaling behaviour at low quark mass for β ≳ 2.4. We determine the K and π coupling constants to be in the ratio 1.25(5). At β = 2.3, we show that the square pion mass contains a substantial contribution which is non-linear in the quark mass and renders chiral limit extrapolations less reliable.