Lattice QCD thermodynamic results with improved staggered fermions

We present results on the QCD equation of state, obtained with two different improved dynamical staggered fermion actions and almost physical quark masses. Lattice cut-off effects are discussed in detail as results for three different lattice spacings are available now, i.e. results have been obtained on lattices with temporal extent of N _τ =4,6 and 8. Furthermore we discuss the Taylor expansion approach to non-zero baryon chemical potential and present the isentropic equation of state on lines of constant entropy per baryon number.     

Hydrodynamic models for heavy-ion collisions and beyond

A generic property of a first-order phase transition in equilibrium, and in the limit of large entropy per unit of conserved charge, is the smallness of the isentropic speed of sound in the “mixed phase”. A specific prediction is that this should lead to a non-isotropic momentum distribution of nucleons in the reaction plane (for energies ≈ 40 A GeV in our model calculation). On the other hand, we show that from present effective theories for low-energy QCD one does not expect the thermal transition rate between various states of the effective potential to be much larger than the expansion rate, questioning the applicability of the idealized Maxwell/Gibbs construction. Experimental data could soon provide essential information on the dynamics of the phase transition.     

Intitial state formation in the hydrodynamical theory of nucleon-nucleon collisions

The treatment is based on the conjecture that in QCD, as in any theory of strong interactions, in many cases we have actually to deal with a continuous classical or quasiclassical medium (QCD vacuum, instantons) rather than with a pair-wise interacting particles. Meanwhile exactly this last approach is usually exploited when the parton (i.e. gluon and quark) interaction forms the basis of investigation of the possibility of formation of initial lump and estimating its size. Since actually the situation is far from being clearly perturbative we start from the opposite approximation, that of a continuous medium. Here viscosity is known to be essential. We estimate its role defining the necessary numerical parameter from exparimental data on transverse mass distribution of produced particles. The longitudinal size Δ of the initial lump for its succeeding isentropic hydrodynamical expansion turns out to be small (and decreases with CMS energy \(\sqrt s\) as \(\sqrt s ^{ - 1/3}\) thus supporting the usual hydrodynamical theory applicability for the multiparticle production in nucleon-nucleon collisions.     

A Brief Overview of Hard-Thermal-Loop Perturbation Theory

The poor convergence of quantum field theory at finite temperature has been one of the main obstacles in the practical applications of thermal QCD for decades.Here we briefly review the progress of hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory (HTLpt) in reorganizing the perturbative expansion in order to improve the convergence.The quantum mechanical anharmonic oscillator is used as a simple example to show the breakdown of weak-coupling expansion,and variational perturbation theory is introduced as an effective resummation scheme for divergent weak-coupling expansions.We discuss HTLpt thermodynamic calculations for QED,pure-glue QCD,and QCD with N f=3 up to three-loop order.The results suggest that HTLpt provides a systematic framework that can be used to calculate both static and dynamic quantities for temperatures relevant at LHC.     

SYNTHESIS OF PERTURBATIVE AND NONPERTURBATIVE QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS

Hadronic structure in QCD has been analyzed by using the Fock state wavefunctions of hadrons defined by quantizing quantum chromodynaraics at equal time of the light-cone. They provide a unified approach to QCD phenomenology. We have presented a convenient method for operator product expansion in the external background fields and have obtained the distributior: amplitude moments values from QCD sum rule by introdution the condensate effect of quarks and gluons. These results are in agreement with the present data.     

Quasi-particle description of strongly interacting matter: Towards a foundation

We confront our quasi-particle model for the equation of state of strongly interacting matter with recent first-principle QCD calculations. In particular, we test its applicability at finite baryon densities by comparing with Taylor expansion coefficients of the pressure for two quark flavours. We outline a chain of approximations starting from the Φ-functional approach to QCD which motivates the quasi-particle picture.     

Lattice results on QCD at high temperature and non-zero baryon number density

Studies of QCD thermodynamics on the lattice now can be performed with an almost realistic quark mass spectrum and on quite large lattices. This will soon allow a controlled extrapolation to the continuum limit. We present recent results on the QCD equation of state, discuss deconfining and chiral symmetry restoring aspects of the QCD transition at vanishing chemical potential and show results on baryon number, electric charge and strangeness fluctuations. We briefly discuss the generic structure of Taylor expansion coefficients in the vicinity of the chiral phase transition and comment on the determination of the anticipated chiral critical point within the framework of Taylor expansions of the QCD partition function.     

Large-Order Estimates in Perturbative QCD and Non-Borel Summable Series

Basic facts about the summation of divergent power series are reviewed, both for series with non vanishing and for series with vanishing convergence radius. Particular attention is paid to the recent development that makes it possible, in the former case, to define summation in the whole Mittag-Leffler star and, in the latter case, to define summation when the point of expansion lies at the tip of a horn-shaped analyticity domain with zero opening angle. Relevance of these results to perturbative QCD is stressed in relation to current discussions concerning large-order estimates of perturbative QCD expansion coefficients.     

Restrictions on exact current correlation functions and reliability of sum-rule results

Criteria of reliability are studied for results obtained within the sum-rule approach in QCD and in some toy models. The criterion of validity of the approximation for current correlation functions based on operator-product expansion within Borel sum rules, suggested previously in the literature, is critically reexamined. A new criterion of validity of a perturbative approximation that makes use of the Källen-Lehmann representation and finite-energy sum rules is proposed. The stability of criteria against small variations in expansion coefficients is investigated in an exactly solvable model and in QCD.     

Supersymmetry relics in one-flavor QCD from a new 1/N expansion

We suggest a new large-N(c) limit for multiflavor QCD. Since fundamental and two-index antisymmetric representations are equivalent in SU(3), we have the option to define SU(N(c)) QCD keeping quarks in the latter. We can then define a new 1/N(c) expansion (at a fixed number of flavors N(f)) that shares appealing properties with the topological (fixed N(f)/N(c)) expansion while being more suitable for theoretical analysis. In particular, for N(f)=1, our large-N(c) limit gives a theory that we recently proved to be equivalent, in the bosonic sector, to N=1 supersymmetric gluodynamics. Using known properties of the latter, we derive several qualitative and semiquantitative predictions for N(f)=1 massless QCD that can be easily tested in lattice simulations. Finally, we comment on possible applications for pure SU(3) Yang-Mills theory and real QCD.     

Ground-state energy of pionic hydrogen to one loop

We investigate the ground-state energy of the atom (pionic hydrogen) in the framework of QCD + QED. In particular, we evaluate the strong energy-level shift. We perform the calculation at next-to-leading order in the low-energy expansion in the framework of the relevant effective field theory. The result provides a relation between the strong energy shift and the pion-nucleon S-wave scattering lengths - evaluated in pure QCD - at next-to-leading order in isospin-breaking and in the low-energy expansion. We compare our result with available model calculations. Received: 11 June 2002 / Published online: 9 October 2002     

Functional approach to QCD finite-energy sum rules

A new method for the determination of the QCD condensates from low-energy hadronic data is proposed. It generalizes the usual QCD finite-energy sum rules, taking into account explicitely the truncation error of the high-energy QCD expansion. The method is applied to the e⁺e^– annihilation intoI= 1 hadrons, indicating a rather large domain for the values of the gluon and four quark condensates.     

QCD sum rules and electromagnetic polarizabilities of a nucleon

We investigate the electromagnetic polarizabilities of a nucleon using the method of QCD sum rules. The diagrams in the operator product expansion are taken into account up to dimension 6. We find that the polarizabilities of a nucleon can be expressed by means of three new kinds of susceptibilities of quark condensates which represent the response under weak external electromagnetic fields. Estimating the susceptibilities with the QCD sum rules itself based on the formalism by Balitsky et al., we see that good agreement is obtained for the neutron electric polarizability.     

Finite-Size Effects on the Phase Diagram and Evolution of Strangelets in Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

In the framework of multiple reflection expansion, finite-size effects are incorporated into the study of the phase diagram and evolution of a strangelet in equilibrium with a finite hadronic phase. It is found that in a significant way finite-size effects can modify the phase diagram and reduce the survival probabilities of cold strangelets in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. The inclusion of finite-size effects can also allow a quantitative analysis of the properties of a cold strangelet resulting from a smooth hydrodynamic evolution with equilibrium hadronization and isentropic expansion.     

Renormalization group dependence of the QCD coupling

The general relation between the standard expansion coefficients and the beta function for the QCD coupling is exactly derived in a mathematically strict way. It is accordingly found that an infinite number of logarithmic terms are lost in the standard expansion with a finite order, and these lost terms can be given in a closed form. Numerical calculations, by a new matching-invariant coupling with the corresponding beta function to four-loop level, show that the new expansion converges much faster.     

Low-energy dynamics in ultradegenerate QCD matter

We study the low-energy behavior of QCD Green functions in the limit that the baryon chemical potential is much larger than the QCD scale parameter LambdaQCD. We show that there is a systematic low-energy expansion in powers of (omega/m)(1/3), where omega is the energy and m is the screening scale. This expansion is valid even if the effective quark-gluon coupling g is not small. The expansion is purely perturbative in the magnetic regime |k| > k0. If the external momenta and energies satisfy |k| approximately k0, planar, Abelian ladder diagrams involving the full quark propagator have to be resummed but the corresponding Dyson-Schwinger equations are closed.     

Hadronic quark distribution amplitudes from QCD sum-rule moments

We discuss the reliability of hadronic wave functions (quark distribution amplitudes) determined by a finite number of QCD sum-rule moments. Although the expansion coefficients for polynomial models of the wave function are uniquely determined by the moments, the inherent uncertainty in such moments leads to a considerable indeterminacy in the wave functions because minimal changes of the moments can lead to large oscillations of the model function. In particular, the freedom in the moments left by QCD sum rules leads to a nonconverging polynomial expansion. This remains true even if additional constraints on the wave functions are used. As a consequence of this, the widely used procedure of constructing polynomial models of hadronic wave function from QCD sum rule moments does not guarantee even a reasonable approximation to the true wave function. The differences among the model wave functions persist also in the calculations of physical observables like hadronic form factors. This implies that physical observables calculated by means of such model wave functions are in general very unreliable. As specific examples, we examine the pion and nucleon wave functions and show that Gegenbauer as well as Appell polynomial expansions constructed from QCD sum rule moments are ruled out. The implications for the wave functions which are generally used in the literature are discussed.     

Estimation of the Critical Point Parameters of the Liquid–Vapor Phase Transition of Metals Using Experiments on the Isentropic Expansion of Shock-Compressed Porous Samples

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics - The isentropic expansion of shock-compressed porous metals (Cu, W, Nb) are experimentally studied, and the experimental results are used to...