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Astronomische Nachrichten 342(5), 715 - 726 (2021). doi:10.1002/asna.202113988, We review the properties of the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at finite temperature and baryon chemical potential as created in heavy-ion collisions at ultrarelativistic energies. The description of the strongly interacting (non-perturbative) QGP in equilibrium is based on the effective propagators and couplings from the Dynamical QuasiParticle Model (DQPM) that is matched to reproduce the equation-of-state of the partonic system above the deconfinement temperature from lattice QCD. Based on a microscopic transport description of heavy-ion collisions, we discuss which observables are sensitive to the QGP creation and its properties., Published by Wiley-VCH Verl., Berlin

We use holography to derive effective theories of fluctuations in spontaneously broken phases of systems with finite temperature, chemical potential, magnetic field and momentum relaxation in which the order parameters break translations. We analytically construct the hydrodynamic modes corresponding to the coupled thermoelectric and density wave fluctuations and all of them turn out to be purely diffusive for our system. Upon introducing pinning for the density waves, some of these modes acquire not only a gap, but also a finite resonance due to the magnetic field. Finally, we study the optical properties and perform numerical checks of our analytical results. A crucial byproduct of our analysis is the identification of the correct current which describes the transport of heat in our system., Comment: 50 pages, 4 figures; v2: references added; v3 added panel in figure 2 and minor comments, added references, published version

International audience; We compare the phase diagram for vanishing chemical potential of the recently advanced version of the PNJL approach with that of the standard (P)NJL approaches.

The hadron resonance gas (HRG) model is often believed to correctly describe the confined phase of QCD. This assumption is the basis of many phenomenological works on QCD thermodynamics and of the analysis of hadron yields in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We use first-principle lattice simulations to calculate corrections to the ideal HRG. Namely, we determine the sub-leading fugacity expansion coefficients of the grand canonical free energy, receiving contributions from processes like kaon-kaon or baryon-baryon scattering. We achieve this goal by performing a two dimensional scan on the imaginary baryon number chemical potential ($\mu_B$) - strangeness chemical potential ($\mu_S$) plane, where the fugacity expansion coefficients become Fourier coefficients. We carry out a continuum limit estimation of these coefficients by performing lattice simulations with temporal extents of $N_\tau=8,10,12$ using the 4stout-improved staggered action. We then use the truncated fugacity expansion to extrapolate ratios of baryon number and strangeness fluctuations and correlations to finite chemical potentials. Evaluating the fugacity expansion along the crossover line, we reproduce the trend seen in the experimental data on net-proton fluctuations by the STAR collaboration., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures

In recent years there has been much progress on the investigation of the QCD phase diagram with lattice QCD simulations. In this review I focus on the developments in the last two years. Especially the addition of external influences or new parameter ranges yield an increasing number of interesting results. I discuss the progress for small, finite densities from both analytical continuation and Complex Langevin simulations, for heavy quark bound states (quarkonium), the dependence on the quark masses (Columbia plot) and the influence of a magnetic field. Many of these conditions are relevant for the understanding of both the QCD transition in the early universe and heavy ion collision experiments which are conducted for example at the LHC and RHIC., 59 pages, 31 figures

We calculate two transport coefficients -- the shear viscosity over entropy ratio $\eta/s$ and the ratio of the electric conductivity to the temperature $\sigma_0/T$ -- of strongly interacting quark matter within the extended $N_f=3$ Polyakov Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model along the crossover transition line for moderate values of baryon chemical potential $0 \leq \mu_B \leq 0.9$ GeV as well as in the vicinity of the critical endpoint (CEP) and at large baryon chemical potential $\mu_B=1.2$ GeV, where the first-order phase transition takes place. The evaluation of the transport coefficients is performed on the basis of the effective Boltzmann equation in the relaxation time approximation. We employ two different methods for the calculation of the quark relaxation times: i) using the averaged transition rate defined via thermal averaged quark-quark and quark-antiquark PNJL cross sections and ii) using the 'weighted' thermal averaged quark-quark and quark-antiquark PNJL cross sections. The $\eta/s$ and $\sigma_0/T$ transport coefficients have a similar temperature and chemical potential behavior when approaching the chiral phase transition for the both methods for the quark relaxation time, however, the differences grow with increasing temperature. We demonstrate the effect of the first-order phase transition and of the CEP on the transport coefficients in the deconfined QCD medium., Comment: 16 pages, 21 figures, 4 tables

Physical review letters 126(20), 201802 (2021). doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.201802, We present a leptogenesis mechanism based on the standard type-I seesaw model that successfully operates at right-handed-neutrino masses as low as a few 100 TeV. This mechanism, which we dub 'wash-in leptogenesis', does not require any CP violation in the neutrino sector and can be implemented even in the regime of strong wash-out. The key idea behind wash-in leptogenesis is to generalize standard freeze-out leptogenesis to a nonminimal cosmological background in which the chemical potentials of all particles not in chemical equilibrium at the temperature of leptogenesis are allowed to take arbitrary values. This sets the stage for building a plethora of new baryogenesis models where chemical potentials generated at high temperatures are reprocessed to generate a nonvanishing B-L asymmetry at low temperatures. As concrete examples, we discuss wash-in leptogenesis after axion inflation and in the context of grand unification., Published by APS, College Park, Md.

International audience; The (Polyakov) Nambu‐ Jona‐Lasinio (PNJL) approach is an effective theory for low energies which shares with Quantumchromodynamics (QCD) the global symmetries. This approach is easy to handle and allows for analytical results for many of the observables which are of interest for the studies of ultrarelativistic heavy‐ion collisions but also for the merger and collisions of neutron stars. It allows in particular to study the density and temperature dependence of quark masses and of the masses of mesons and baryons as well as the chiral phase transition. In recent times, this transition came in the focus of interest because it is expected that the upcoming experiments at the Fair (Germany) and NICA (Russia) facilities will observe a Quark‐Gluon‐Plasma (QGP) at finite baryon chemical potential. In this contribution, we show that the extended PNJL model is able to describe the properties of symmetric matter at vanishing chemical potential, as determined by lQCD calculations.

By measuring the momentum correlations of pions created in heavy-ion collisions we can gain information about the space-time geometry of the particle emitting source. Recent experimental results from multiple different collaborations demonstrated that to properly describe the shape of the measured correlation functions, one needs to go beyond the Gaussian approximation. Some studies suggest that the Levy distribution could provide a good description of the source. While there are already many experimental results, there is very little input from the phenomenology side in explanation of the observed non-Gaussian source shapes. The EPOS model is a sophisticated hybrid model where the evolution of the newly-created system is governed by Parton-Based Gribov-Regge theory. It has already proved to be successful in describing many different experimental observations for the systems characterized by baryon chemical potential close to zero, but so far the source shape has not been explored in detail. In this paper we discuss studies of the pion emitting source based on the theoretical approach of the EPOS model., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Summer XLVI-th IEEE-SPIE Joint Symposium Wilga 2020 - conference proceedings

The critical region of the two flavour quark-meson model with vector interactions is explored using the Functional Renormalization Group technique, a non-perturbative method that takes into account quantum and thermal fluctuations. Special attention is given to the low temperature and high density region of the phase diagram, which is very important for the evolution of proto-neutron stars and to construct the equation of state of compact stars. As in previous studies, without repulsive vector interaction, an unphysical region of negative entropy density is found near the first order chiral phase transition. We explore the connection between this unphysical region and the chiral critical region, especially the first order line and spinodal lines, using also different values for vector interactions. The effect of finite vector interactions in the critical region is explored. We find that the unphysical negative entropy density region appears because the $s=0$ isentropic line, near the critical region, is displaced from its $T=0$ location. For certain values of vector interactions this region is pushed to lower temperatures and high chemical potentials in such way that the negative entropy density region on the phase diagram of the model can even disapear. In the case of finite vector interactions, the location of the critical end point has a non-trivial behaviour in the $T-\mu_B$ plane, which differs from that in mean-field calculations., Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures

The supersymmetric R\'enyi entropy across a spherical entangling surface in a $d$-dimensional SCFT with flavor defects is equivalent to a supersymmetric partition function on $\mathbb{H}^{d-1} \times \mathbb{S}^1$, which can be computed exactly using localization. We consider the holographically dual BPS solutions in $(d +1)$-dimensional matter coupled supergravity $(d = 3 , 5)$, which are charged hyperbolically sliced AdS black holes. We compute the renormalized on-shell action and the holographic supersymmetric R\'enyi entropy and show a perfect match with the field theory side. Our setup allows a direct map between the chemical potentials for the global symmetries of the field theories and those of the gravity solutions. We also discuss a simple case where angular momentum is added., Comment: 43 pages

We extend the SU(3) (Polyakov)–Nambu–Jona-Lasinio in two ways: We introduce the next-to-leading-order contribution (in Nc) in the partition function. This contribution contains explicit mesonic terms. We introduce a coupling between the gluon field and the quark degrees of freedom, which goes beyond a simple rescaling of the critical temperature. With both these improvements, we can reproduce, for vanishing chemical potentials, the lattice results for the thermal properties of a strongly interacting system like pressure, energy density, entropy density, interaction measure, and the speed of sound. Also, the expansion parameter toward small but finite chemical potentials agrees with the lattice results. Extending the calculations to finite chemical potentials (which does not require any new parameter), we find a first-order phase transition up to a critical end point of TCEP=110MeV and μq=320MeV. We calculate the mass of mesons and baryons as a function of temperature and chemical potential and the transition between the hadronic and the chirally restored phase. These calculations provide an equation of state in the whole T,μ plane an essential ingredient for dynamical calculations of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions but also for the physics of neutron stars and neutron star collisions.

Lattice simulations of the QCD correlation functions in the Landau gauge have established two remarkable facts. First, the coupling constant in the gauge sector remains finite and moderate at all scales, suggesting that some kind of perturbative description should be valid down to infrared momenta. Second, the gluon propagator reaches a finite nonzero value at vanishing momentum, corresponding to a gluon screening mass. We review recent studies which aim at describing the long-distance properties of Landau gauge QCD by means of the perturbative Curci-Ferrari model. The latter is the simplest deformation of the Faddeev-Popov Lagrangian in the Landau gauge that includes a gluon screening mass at tree-level. There are, by now, strong evidences that this approach successfully describes many aspects of the infrared QCD dynamics. In particular, several correlation functions were computed at one- and two-loop orders and compared with {\it ab-initio} lattice simulations. The typical error is of the order of ten percent for a one-loop calculation and drops to few percents at two loops. We review such calculations in the quenched approximation as well as in the presence of dynamical quarks. In the latter case, the spontaneous breaking of the chiral symmetry requires to go beyond a coupling expansion but can still be described in a controlled approximation scheme in terms of small parameters. We also review applications of the approach to nonzero temperature and chemical potential., Comment: 51 pages, 29 figures

We construct a family of equations of state for QCD in the temperature range 30 MeV $\leq T\leq$ 800 MeV and in the chemical potential range $0\leq \mu_B \leq$ 450 MeV. These equations of state match available lattice QCD results up to $\mathcal{O}(\mu_B^4)$ and in each of them we place a critical point in the 3D Ising model universality class. The position of this critical point can be chosen in the range of chemical potentials covered by the second Beam Energy Scan at RHIC. We discuss possible choices for the free parameters, which arise from mapping the Ising model onto QCD. Our results for the pressure, entropy density, baryon density, energy density and speed of sound can be used as inputs in the hydrodynamical simulations of the fireball created in heavy ion collisions. We also show our result for the second cumulant of the baryon number in thermal equilibrium, displaying its divergence at the critical point. In the future, comparisons between RHIC data and the output of the hydrodynamic simulations, including calculations of fluctuation observables, built upon the model equations of state that we have constructed may be used to locate the critical point in the QCD phase diagram, if there is one to be found., Comment: 39 pages, 18 figures, 2 tables, version published in Phys.Rev.C

Nonperturbative equations of state (EoSs) for two and three quark flavors are constructed with the functional renormalization group (FRG) within a quark-meson model truncation augmented by vector mesons for low temperature and high density. Based on previous FRG studies without repulsive vector meson interactions the influence of isoscalar vector $\omega$- and $\phi$-mesons on the dynamical fluctuations of quarks and (pseudo)scalar mesons is investigated. The grand potential as well as vector meson condensates are evaluated as a function of quark chemical potential and the quark matter EoS in $\beta$-equilibrium is applied to neutron star (NS) physics. The tidal deformability and mass-radius relations for hybrid stars from combined hadronic and quark matter EoSs are compared for different vector couplings. We observe a significant impact of the vector mesons on the quark matter EoS such that the resulting EoS is sufficiently stiff to support two-solar-mass neutron stars., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, 1 table; to appear in EPJ ST Special Issue: Strong Correlations in Dense Matter Physics

We evaluate the finite temperature scalar sunset diagram with imaginary square masses, that appears in the Gribov-Zwanziger approach to Yang-Mills (YM) theory beyond one-loop order. Since YM theory at finite temperature is governed by center-symmetry and the Polyakov loop, we also include the possibility of a constant temporal background gauge field in the form of color-dependent imaginary chemical potentials., Comment: 41 pages, 1 figure

International audience; The presence of exotic hadrons, such as hyperons and Δ isobars, in the dense nuclear matter in their cores has been shown to produce important changes in the properties of neutron stars. Within the quark-meson coupling model, we show that the many-body forces generated by the change in the internal quark structure of the baryons in the strong scalar mean fields generated in dense nuclear matter prohibit the appearance of Δ isobars.

We initiate a systematic, non-perturbative study of the large-$N$ expansion in the two-dimensional $\text{SU}(N)\times \text{SU}(N)$ Principal Chiral Model (PCM). Starting with the known infinite-$N$ solution for the ground state at fixed chemical potential \cite{Fateev:1994dp,Fateev:1994ai}, we devise an iterative procedure to solve the Bethe ansatz equations order by order in $1/N$. The first few orders, which we explicitly compute, reveal a systematic enhancement pattern at strong coupling calling for the near-threshold resummation of the large-$N$ expansion. The resulting double-scaling limit bears striking similarities to the $c=1$ non-critical string theory and suggests that the double-scaled PCM is dual to a non-critical string with a $(2+1)$-dimensional target space where an additional dimension emerges dynamically from the $\text{SU}(N)$ Dynkin diagram., 6 pages, 1 figure, v2: typos fixed, minor corrections

We investigate the edge effects on the finite temperature fermionic condensate (FC) for a massive fermionic field in a (2+1)-dimensional conical spacetime with a magnetic flux located at the cone apex. The field obeys the bag boundary condition on a circle concentric with the apex. The analysis is presented for both the fields realizing two irreducible representations of the Clifford algebra and for general case of the chemical potential. In both the regions outside and inside the circular boundary, the FC is decomposed into the boundary-free and boundary-induced contributions. They are periodic functions of the magnetic flux with the period equal to the flux quantum and even functions under the simultaneous change of the signs for the magentic flux and the chemical potential. The dependence of the FC on the magnetic flux becomes weaker with decreasing planar angle deficit. For points near the boundary, the effects of finite temperature, of planar angle deficit and of magnetic flux are weak. For a fixed distance from the boundary and at high temperatures the FC is dominated by the Minkowskian part. The FC in parity and time-reversal symmetric (2+1)-dimensional fermionic models is discussed and applications are given to graphitic cones., Version accepted for publication in PRD. 28 pages, 6 figures

The QCD transition from a hadronic to a quark-gluon plasma phase is a cross-over at vanishing/small baryo-chemical potential, while at higher chemical potentials it is argued that it becomes of first order, ending with a critical end-point. The present goal is the determination of the critical line and, possibly, the recognition of the critical endpoint. For this purpose, the effective model (Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with Polyakov Loop) with 2+1 flavours is used. In Mean Field Approximation it is possible to obtain all thermodynamic quantities (pressure, entropy, energy and quark density) and their fluctuations, in particular, the generalized quark-number susceptibilities. We use the net baryon-number fluctuations and net-strangeness fluctuations to identify the critical line and the order of the phase transition in the chemical potential - temperature plane., 5 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of Fairness 2019

We revisit the decoupling of neutrinos in the early universe with flavour oscillations. We rederive the quantum kinetic equations which determine the neutrino evolution based on a BBGKY-like hierarchy, and include for the first time the full collision term, with both on- and off-diagonal terms for all relevant reactions. We focus on the case of zero chemical potential and solve these equations numerically. We also develop an approximate scheme based on the adiabatic evolution in the matter basis. In fact, the large difference between the oscillations and cosmological time scales allows to consider averaged flavour oscillations which can speed up the numerical integration by two orders of magnitude, when combined with a direct computation of the differential system Jacobian. The approximate numerical scheme is also useful to gain more insight into the physics of neutrino decoupling. Including the most recent results on plasma thermodynamics QED corrections, we update the effective number of neutrinos to $N_{\mathrm{eff}} = 3.0440$. Finally we study the impact of flavour oscillations during neutrino decoupling on the subsequent primordial nucleosynthesis., Comment: 38 pages, 6 figures, v2: appendix discussing the effect of a CP phase. Version published in JCAP

Multi-messenger observations of neutron star (NS) mergers have the potential to revolutionize nuclear astrophysics. They will improve our understanding of nucleosynthesis, provide insights about the equation of state (EOS) of strongly-interacting matter at high densities, and enable tests of the theory of gravity and of dark matter. Here, we focus on the EOS, where both gravitational waves (GWs) from neutron-star mergers and X-ray observations from space-based detectors such as NICER will provide more stringent constraints on the structure of neutron stars. Furthermore, recent advances in nuclear theory have enabled reliable calculations of the EOS at low densities using effective field theory based Hamiltonians and advanced techniques to solve the quantum many-body problem. In this paper, we address how the first observation of GWs from GW170817 can be combined with modern calculations of the EOS to extract useful insights about the EOS of matter encountered inside neutron stars. We analyze the impact of various uncertainties, the role of phase transitions in the NS core, and discuss how future observations will improve our understanding of dense matter., 18 pages, 10 figures, published version; Invited contribution prepared for the EPJ A Topical Issue "First joint gravitational wave and electromagnetic observations: Implications for nuclear and particle physics."

We determine chemical freeze-out conditions from strangeness observables measured at RHIC beam energies. Based on a combined analysis of lowest-order net-kaon fluctuations and strange anti-baryon over baryon yield ratios we obtain visibly enhanced freeze-out conditions at high beam energies compared to previous studies which analyzed net-proton and net-charge fluctuations. Our findings are in qualitative agreement with the recent study (Bellwied et al. in arXiv:1805.00088 [hep-ph], 2018) which utilizes the net-kaon fluctuation data in combination with information from lattice QCD. Our complementary approach shows that also strange hadron yield ratios are described by such enhanced freeze-out conditions.

The aim of this work is to shed light on some lesser known aspects of Polyakov-loop--extended chiral models (namely the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio and Quark-Meson models), especially on the correlation of the quark sector with the Polyakov loop. We show that the ordering of chiral and Polyakov-loop transitions and their difference in temperature as seen in lattice QCD calculations could be realized with a critical scale of the Polyakov-loop potential that is larger than the one in pure gauge theory. The comparison of the results for the Polyakov-loop susceptibility obtained using the self-consistent medium-dependent quark mass with those obtained while keeping these masses at a fixed value allows to disentangle chiral-symmetry restoration and center-symmetry breaking effects. Furthermore, a confined chirally restored phase is identified by a plateau in the quark contribution to thermodynamics and by sigma and pion spectral functions that coincide but have a small width. We also discuss that, for some large chemical potential values, the explicit center-symmetry breaking is so strong that statistical deconfinement is realized at infinitely small temperatures. Both the missing sensitivity of the Polyakov loop to the quark mass, except at close to the chiral transition, and the Polyakov loop being zero at zero temperature at all chemical potentials, can be interpreted as indications of a missing mechanism which accounts for the quark back-reaction on the Polyakov loop., Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, version published in Phys. Rev. D

We use an expansion in angular mode functions in order to solve the Boltzmann equation for a gluon plasma undergoing longitudinal expansion. By comparing with the exact solution obtained numerically by other means we show that the expansion in mode functions converges rapidly for all cases of practical interest, and represents a substantial gain in numerical effort as compared to more standard methods. We contrast the cases of a non expanding plasma and of longitudinally expanding plasmas, and follow in both cases the evolutions towards thermalization. In the latter case, we observe that, although the spherical mode function appears to be well reproduced after some time by a local equilibrium distribution function depending on slowly varying temperature and chemical potential, thereby suggesting thermalization of the system, the longitudinal and transverse pressures take more time to equilibrate. This is because the expansion hinders the relaxation of the first angular mode function. This feature was also observed in a simpler context where the Boltzmann equation is solved in terms of special moments within the relaxation time approximation, and attributed there to the particular coupling between the first two moments of the distribution function. The present analysis confirms this observation in a more realistic setting., 23 pages, 16 figures, version published in Nuclear Physics A

The chemical freeze-out irregularities found with the most advanced hadron resonance gas model and possible signals of two QCD phase transitions are discussed. We found that the center-of-mass collision energy range of tricritical endpoint of QCD phase diagram is [9; 9.2] GeV which is consistent both with QCD inspired exactly solvable model and with experimental findings., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

International audience; The (Polyakov) Nambu–Jona‐Lasinio approach is an effective theory for low energies, which shares with Quantumchromodynamics the global symmetries. This approach is easy to handle and allows for analytical results for many of the observables that are of interest for the studies of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions but also for the merger and collisions of neutron stars. It allows in particular to study the density and temperature dependence of quark masses and of the masses of mesons and baryons as well as the chiral phase transition. In recent times, this transition came in the focus of interest because it is expected that the upcoming experiments at the Fair (Germany) and Nuclotron‐based Ion Collider fAcility (Russia) facilities will observe a Quark‐Gluon‐Plasma at finite baryon chemical potential.

We extend a previous investigation of the QCD phase diagram with heavy quarks in the context of background field methods by including the two-loop corrections to the background field effective potential. The nonperturbative dynamics in the pure-gauge sector is modeled by a phenomenological gluon mass term in the Landau-DeWitt gauge-fixed action, which results in an improved perturbative expansion. We investigate the phase diagram at nonzero temperature and (real or imaginary) chemical potential. Two-loop corrections yield an improved agreement with lattice data as compared to the leading-order results. We also compare with the results of nonperturbative approaches. We further study the equation of state as well as the thermodynamic stability of the system at two-loop order. Finally, we show, using simple thermodynamic arguments, that the behavior of the Polyakov loops as functions of the chemical potential complies with their interpretation in terms of quark and anti-quark free energies., 26 pages, 16 figures

We present the latest results on the collision energy dependence of $\eta/s$, obtained from a Bayesian model-to-data analysis of UrQMD + viscous hydrodynamics hybrid model to RHIC beam energy scan data for Au+Au collisions at 19.6, 39 and 62.4 GeV. Changes in the most likely value of $\eta/s$ over beam energy scan range suggest a dependence on baryon chemical potential $\mu_B$. However, we also find the uncertainties regarding the value of $\eta/s$ to be notable at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=19.6$ GeV.

We estimate the chemical freeze-out of light nuclear clusters for NICA energies of above 2 A GeV. On the one hand we use results from the low energy domain of about 35 A MeV, where medium effects have been shown to be important to explain experimental results. On the high energy side of LHC energies the statistical model without medium effects has provided results for the chemical freeze-out. The two approaches extrapolated to NICA energies show a discrepancy that can be attributed to medium effects and that for the deuteron/proton ratio amounts to a factor of about three. These findings underline the importance of a detailed investigation of light cluster production at NICA energies., 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Part. Nucl. Lett

The Quark-Meson-Coupling model, which self-consistently relates the dynamics of the internal quark structure of a hadron to the relativistic mean fields arising in nuclear matter, provides a natural explanation to many open questions in low energy nuclear physics, including the origin of many-body nuclear forces and their saturation, the spin-orbit interaction and properties of hadronic matter at a wide range of densities up to those occurring in the cores of neutron stars. Here we focus on four aspects of the model (i) a full comprehensive survey of the theory, including the latest developments, (ii) extensive application of the model to ground state properties of finite nuclei and hypernuclei, with a discussion of similarities and differences between the QMC and Skyrme energy density functionals, (iii) equilibrium conditions and composition of hadronic matter in cold and warm neutron stars and their comparison with the outcome of relativistic mean-field theories and, (iv) tests of the fundamental idea that hadron structure changes in-medium., Comment: 84 pages, 11 figures, in print in Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics

We investigate the phase diagram of QCD-like gauge theories at strong coupling at finite magnetic field $B$, temperature $T$ and baryon chemical potential $\mu$ using the improved holographic QCD model including the full backreaction of the quarks in the plasma. In addition to the phase diagram we study the behavior of the quark condensate as a function of $T$, $B$ and $\mu$ and discuss the fate of (inverse) magnetic catalysis at finite $\mu$. In particular we observe that inverse magnetic catalysis exists only for small values of the baryon chemical potential. The speed of sound in this holographic quark-gluon plasma exhibits interesting dependence on the thermodynamic parameters., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

Holographic models provide unique laboratories to investigate non-linear physics of transport in inhomogeneous systems. We provide a detailed account of both DC and AC conductivities in a defect CFT with spontaneous stripe order. The spatial symmetry is broken at large chemical potential and the resulting ground state is a combination of a spin and charge density wave. An infinitesimal applied electric field across the stripes will cause the stripes to slide over the underlying density of smeared impurities, a phenomenon which can be associated with the Goldstone mode for the spontaneously broken translation symmetry. We show that the presence of a spatially modulated background magnetization current thwarts the expression of some DC conductivities in terms of horizon data., 37 pages, 8 figures; v2: minor clarifications, published version

The European physical journal / C 77(9), 584 (2017). doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5177-y, Published by Springer, Berlin

International audience; We study the equation of state of QCD using an improved version of the three-flavor Polyakov–Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model beyond the mean-field approximation. It incorporates the effects of unquenched quarks into the Polyakov-loop effective potential, as well as mesonic contributions to the grand-canonical potential. We study in full detail the calculation of the thermodynamical potential in this approach and compare the resulting pressure and entropy density with the most-recent lattice-QCD calculations at zero baryochemical potential. Finally, we present some exploratory results at finite chemical potential which include the phase diagram of the model, the quark and meson masses, and finally, the thermodynamical pressure.

The derivation of Lifshitz-invariant hydrodynamics from holography, presented in [arXiv:1508.02494] is generalized to arbitrary hyperscaling violating Lifshitz scaling theories with an unbroken U(1) symmetry. The hydrodynamics emerging is non-relativistic with scalar "forcing". By a redefinition of the pressure it becomes standard non-relativistic hydrodynamics in the presence of specific chemical potential for the mass current. The hydrodynamics is compatible with the scaling theory of Lifshitz invariance with hyperscaling violation. The bulk viscosity vanishes while the shear viscosity to entropy ratio is the same as in the relativistic case. We also consider the dimensional reduction ansatz for the hydrodynamics and clarify the difference with previous results suggesting a non-vanishing bulk viscosity., Comment: 52 pages, v2: published version, many minor misprints corrected, 55 pages

We discuss the quark masses and the elastic $q\bar q$ cross sections at finite chemical potential in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. We comment the generic features of the cross sections as functions of the chemical potential, temperature and collision energy. Finally, we discuss their relevance in the construction of a relativistic transport model for heavy-ion collisions based on this effective Lagrangian., Comment: Proceedings Discovery Physics at the LHC, December 4-9, 2016 Protea Hotel, Kruger Gate, SA

We investigate the Polyakov loop effects on the QCD phase diagram by using the strong-coupling (1/g^2) expansion of the lattice QCD (SC-LQCD) with one species of unrooted staggered quark, including O}(1/g^4) effects. We take account of the effects of Polyakov loop fluctuations in Weiss mean-field approximation (MFA), and compare the results with those in the Haar-measure MFA (no fluctuation from the mean-field). The Polyakov loops strongly suppress the chiral transition temperature in the second-order/crossover region at small chemical potential, while they give a minor modification of the first-order phase boundary at larger chemical potential. The Polyakov loops also account for a drastic increase of the interaction measure near the chiral phase transition. The chiral and Polyakov loop susceptibilities have their peaks close to each other in the second-order/crossover region. In particular in Weiss MFA, there is no indication of the separated deconfinement transition boundary from the chiral phase boundary at any chemical potential. We discuss the interplay between the chiral and deconfinement dynamics via the bare quark mass dependence of susceptibilities., Comment: 17 pages, 17 figures

We discuss the holographic reconstruction of four-dimensional asymptotically anti-de Sitter Robinson-Trautman spacetime from boundary data. We use for that a resummed version of the derivative expansion. The latter involves a vector field, which is interpreted as the dual-holographic-fluid velocity field and is naturally defined in the Eckart frame. In this frame the analysis of the non-perfect holographic energy-momentum tensor is considerably simplified. The Robinson-Trautman fluid is at rest and its time evolution is a heat-diffusion kind of phenomenon: the Robinson-Trautman equation plays the r\^ole of heat equation, and the heat current is identified with the gradient of the extrinsic curvature of the two-dimensional boundary spatial section hosting the conformal fluid, interpreted as an out-of-equilibrium kinematical temperature. The hydrodynamic-frame-independent entropy current is conserved for vanishing chemical potential, and the evolution of the fluid resembles a Moutier thermodynamic path. We finally comment on the general transformation rules for moving to the Landau-Lifshitz frame, and on possible drawbacks of this option., Comment: v1: 1+33 pages Latex, v2: few minor changes, final version, v3: fixing typos

International audience; We report on recent progress in the description of the phase diagram of QCD with heavy quarks at nonzero temperature and chemical potential in the context of a modified perturbative approach. The latter is based on a simple massive extension of the QCD Lagrangian in the Landau-DeWitt gauge, the background field generalization of the Landau gauge. Here, the background field plays the role of an order parameter for the center symmetry, relevant for confinement-deconfinement transition. One-loop results in this approach give a fairly accurate description of the phase diagram both at real and imaginary chemical potential. We comment on issues related to the sign problem in continuum approaches.⋆ Based on works in collaboration with Matthieu Tissier and Nicolás Wschebor.

International audience; We investigate the kurtosis of the net proton number and the chiral order parameter within the model of nonequilibrium chiral fluid dynamics for a crossover scenario near the critical point. Our model describes the interplay between a dynamical order parameter and a quark–gluon fluid during the expansion of the hot fireball created in a heavy-ion collision. A subsequent particlization process allows us to study experimental observables via an event-by-event analysis. We aim at understanding the interplay of two types of fluctuations: First, fluctuations in the chiral order parameter, and second, fluctuations in the net proton number. Our results show that both follow the same trend in a dynamical setup of a crossover transition. Although effects of finite size and inhomogeneity are present, the signal in the net-proton kurtosis develops clearly.

Recent proposals have suggested that a previously unknown decay mode of the neutron into a dark matter particle could solve the long lasting measurement problem of the neutron decay width. We show that, if the dark particle in neutron decay is the major component of the dark matter in the universe, this proposal is in disagreement with modern astro-physical data concerning neutron star masses., Invited talk presented at the Conference on Particles and Cosmology at NTU Singapore, March 2018

We determine the dependence of important parameters for critical fluctuations on temperature and baryon chemical potential in the QCD phase diagram. The analysis is based on an identification of the fluctuations of the order parameter obtained from the Ising model equation of state and the Ginzburg-Landau effective potential approach. The impact of the mapping from Ising model variables to QCD thermodynamics is discussed., Comment: Contribution to the Proceedings of Strangeness in Quark Matter 2016, Berkeley, USA

We analyse the $3+1$ D equilibrium chiral magnetic effect (CME). We apply derivative expansion to the Wigner transform of the two - point Green function. This technique allows us to express the response of electric current to external electromagnetic field strength through the momentum space topological invariant. We consider the wide class of the lattice regularizations of quantum field theory (that includes, in particular, the regularization with Wilson fermions) and also certain lattice models of solid state physics (including those of Dirac semimetals). It appears, that in these models the mentioned topological invariant vanishes identically at nonzero chiral chemical potential. That means, that the bulk equilibrium CME is absent in those systems., Comment: Latex, 18 pages, misprints corrected. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1603.03665

We study the dynamics of the formation of inhomogeneous chirally broken phases in the final stages of a heavy-ion collision, with particular interest on the time scales involved in the formation process. The study is conducted within the framework of a Ginzburg-Landau time evolution, driven by a free energy functional motivated by the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model. Expansion of the medium is modeled by one-dimensional Bjorken flow and its effect on the formation of inhomogeneous condensates is investigated. We also use a free energy functional from a nonlocal Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model which predicts metastable phases that lead to long-lived inhomogeneous condensates before reaching an equilibrium phase with homogeneous condensates., Instituto de Física La Plata

We determine the chiral phase transition line in (2+1)-flavor QCD for small values of the light quark chemical potential. We show that for small values of the chemical potential the curvature of the phase transition line can be deduced from an analysis of scaling properties of the chiral condensate and its susceptibilities. To do so we extend earlier studies of the magnetic equation of state in (2+1)-flavor QCD to finer lattice spacings, aT=1/8. We use these universal scaling properties of the chiral order parameter to extract the curvature of the transition line at two values of the cut-off, aT=1/4 and 1/8. We find that cut-off effects are small for the curvature parameter and determine the transition line in the chiral limit to leading order in the light quark chemical potential. We obtain Tc(\mu_q)/Tc(0) = 1 - 0.059(2)(4) (\mu_q/T)^2 +O(\mu_q^4)., Comment: 11 pages, 4 EPS files

We study baryonic matter with isospin asymmetry, including fully dynamically its interplay with pion condensation. To this end, we employ the holographic Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model and the so-called homogeneous ansatz for the gauge fields in the bulk to describe baryonic matter. Within the confined geometry and restricting ourselves to the chiral limit, we map out the phase structure in the presence of baryon and isospin chemical potentials, showing that for sufficiently large chemical potentials condensed pions and isospin-asymmetric baryonic matter coexist. We also present first results of the same approach in the deconfined geometry and demonstrate that this case, albeit technically more involved, is better suited for comparisons with and predictions for real-world QCD. Our study lays the ground for future improved holographic studies aiming towards a realistic description of charge neutral, beta-equilibrated matter in compact stars, and also for more refined comparisons with lattice studies at nonzero isospin chemical potential., 53 pages, 8 figures, v2: minor improvements in the text, format adapted to SciPost Physics; v3: typos in Eqs.(20) and (30c) corrected