Stability of matter

A Hamiltonian which is bounded from below by a multiple of the number of particles is called stable. We discuss which interactions are stable and which are not. Furthermore we show how this stability is related to other notions of stability.Lecture given at the symposium for the 60th birthday of Peter Mittelstaedt.     

Stability of nuclear matter against neutral pion condensation

The global stability of the uniform ground state of nuclear matter is tested relative to a π⁰-condensed state characterized by static spin-(isospin-) waves. Strong nuclear correlations are introduced into the trial wave functions for each phase, thereby permitting models of the realistic two-nucleon force to be employed. In low cluster-order comparison, the uniform phases of symmetrical nuclear matter and neutron matter are emphatically favored over the entire density range considered.     

Stability of naked singularity arising in gravitational collapse of Type I matter fields

Considering gravitational collapse of Type I matter fields, we prove that, given an arbitrary C²-mass functionM(r, v) and a C¹-functionh(r, v) (through the corresponding C¹-metric functionν(t, r)), there exist infinitely many choices of energy distribution functionb(r) such that the ’true’ initial data(M, h(r,v)) leads the collapse to the formation of naked singularity. We further prove that the occurrence of such a naked singularity is stable with respect to small changes in the initial data. We remark that though the initial data leading to both black hole (BH) and naked singularity (NS) form a ’big’ subset of the true initial data set, their occurrence is not generic. The terms ’stability’ and ’genericity’ are appropriately defined following the theory of dynamical systems. The particular case of radial pressurep _r (r) has been illustrated in details to get a clear picture of how naked singularity is formed and how, it is stable with respect to initial data.     

Stability of proton and maximally symmetric minimal unification model for basic forces and building blocks of matter

With the hypothesis that all independent degrees of freedom of basic building blocks should be treated equally on the same footing and correlated by a possible maximal symmetry, we arrive at a 4-dimensional space-time unification model. In this model the basic building blocks are Majorana fermions in the spinor repre- sentation of 14-dimensional quantum space-time with a gauge symmetry GM4D = SO(1,3)×SU(32)×U(1)A×SU(3)F. The model leads to new physics including mirror particles of the standard model. It enables us to issue some fundamental questions that include: why our living space-time is 4-dimensional, why parity is not con- served in our world, how the stability of proton is, what the origin of CP violation is and what the dark matter can be.     

Hyperon-rich matter and kaons in matter

We discuss the equation of state of neutron stars in the dense interior considering hyperons and the possible onset of kaon condensation within the relativistic mean field model. We find that hyperons are favoured in dense matter and that their appearance makes the existence of a kaon condensed phase quite unlikely. Implications for the recent measurements of kaons in heavy ion collisions at subthreshold energy are also given.     

Quark matter nucleation in hot hadronic matter

We study the quark deconfinement phase transition in hot β-stable hadronic matter. Assuming a first order phase transition, we calculate the enthalpy per baryon of the hadron–quark phase transition. We calculate and compare the nucleation rate and the nucleation time due to thermal and quantum nucleation mechanisms. We compute the crossover temperature above which thermal nucleation dominates the finite temperature quantum nucleation mechanism. We next discuss the consequences for the physics of proto-neutron stars. We introduce the concept of limiting conversion temperature and critical mass M_cr for proto-hadronic stars, and we show that proto-hadronic stars with a mass M<M_cr could survive the early stages of their evolution without decaying to a quark star.     

Artificial graphenes: Dirac matter beyond condensed matter

After the discovery of graphene and of its many fascinating properties, there has been a growing interest for the study of “artificial graphenes”. These are totally different and novel systems that bear exciting similarities with graphene. Among them are lattices of ultracold atoms, microwave or photonic lattices, “molecular graphene” or new compounds like phosphorene. The advantage of these structures is that they serve as new playgrounds for measuring and testing physical phenomena that may not be reachable in graphene, in particular the possibility of controlling the existence of Dirac points (or Dirac cones) existing in the electronic spectrum of graphene, of performing interference experiments in reciprocal space, of probing geometrical properties of the wave functions, of manipulating edge states, etc. These cones, which describe the band structure in the vicinity of the two connected energy bands, are characterized by a topological “charge”. They can be moved in the reciprocal space by appropriate modification of external parameters (pressure, twist, sliding, stress, etc.). They can be manipulated, created or suppressed under the condition that the total topological charge be conserved. In this short review, I discuss several aspects of the scenarios of merging or emergence of Dirac points as well as the experimental investigations of these scenarios in condensed matter and beyond.     

Superdense matter

We review recent work on the phase structure of QCD at very high baryon density. We introduce the phenomenon of color superconductivity and discuss the use of weak coupling methods. We study the phase structure as a function of the number of flavors and their masses. We also introduce effective theories that describe low energy excitations at high baryon density. Finally, we comment on the possibility of kaon condensation at very large baryon density.     

Lepto-quark matter

In certain extensions of the standard model with additionalU(1) gauge symmetries, the anomalies between the quarks and leptons no longer cancel. It is shown that the anomalies can be cancelled by invoking representations oflepto-quark fermions. Lepto-quarks represent new fermionic matter that carries quark as well as lepton numbers. An extension of the standard model with three and four families of conventional quarks and leptons is presented in which freedom from anomalies is secured through the presence of lepto-quark matter representations. The gauge symmetry of the model isSU(2) _L XU(1) _q XU(1) _l whereU(1) _q andU(1) _l refer to distinct hypercharge sources for the quarks and the leptons.     

直接探测暗物质和中国暗物质实验

The nature of dark matter in our universe is one of the most challenging problems in science today. A most probable class of dark matter is the weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which exhibit a wide range of features. Current experiments searching for dark matter aim for direct detection via the elastic scattering off ordinary matter in terrestrial detectors. This paper will present the main methods, status and roadmap for the direct detection of dark matter. The world's deepest laboratory, China Jinping underground laboratory and its extension, will also be described. Finally, we will give a detailed introduction to the research history, detection technologies, current results, and future prospects of China dark matter experiment (CDEX).     

Meson exchange corrections and properties of nuclear matter and neutron matter

A calculation of meson exchange corrections to the binding energy as function of the density is presented for nuclear matter and neutron matter. The framework is the application of non-covariant perturbation theory to a field theoretical Hamiltonian. Within a Brueckner-type approximation we restrict ourselves to the calculation of those meson exchange corrections which are due to one meson exchange and which produce no mass renormalization corrections. The results are reported in detail and the structure of the results is revealed. As a net effect, we find that our meson exchange corrections give a repulsion in nuclear matter yielding about 5 MeV less binding at the saturation point. For neutron matter, the effects are very small.