Overview of the QCD phase diagram: Recent progress from the lattice

In recent years there has been much progress on the investigation of the QCD phase diagram with lattice QCD simulations. In this review we focus on the developments in the last two years. Especially the addition of external influences or new parameter ranges yields an increasing number of interesting results. We discuss the progress for small, finite densities from both extrapolation-based methods (Taylor expansion and analytic continuation for imaginary chemical potential) 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.

Charged Pion Condensation in Dense Quark Matter: Nambu–Jona-Lasinio Model Study

In this short review we tried to give an outline of investigations of charged pion condensation (PC) in dense baryonic (quark) matter in the framework of effective Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL)-type models. The possibility of charged PC phase in dense quark matter with isospin asymmetry is investigated. First, it is demonstrated that this phase can be realized in the framework of massless NJL model. However, the existence of this phase is enormously fragile to the values of current quark mass and we show that charged PC phase is forbidden in electrically neutral dense quark matter with β -equilibrium when current quark masses are close to their physical value of 5.5 MeV. Nevertheless, then it is shown that in real physical systems there could be conditions promoting the appearance of charged PC phenomenon in dense quark matter; specifically, it was shown that if one takes into consideration the fact that system can have finite size, then a dense charged PC phase can be realized there. It was also demonstrated that the possibility of inhomogeneous pion condensate might allow this phase to appear. In addition, more recently it was revealed that there is another interesting factor that can induce a charged PC phase in dense quark matter even without isospin imbalance. It is a chiral imbalance of the system (non-zero difference between densities of left- and right-handed quarks). These results can be interesting in heavy ion collision experiments, where it is expected to get high baryon densities. It is of interest also in the context of neutron stars, where quark matter might be realized in the core and very high baryon and isospin densities are attained.

Affinity of NJL2 and NJL4 model results on duality and pion condensation in chiral asymmetric dense quark matter

In this paper we investigate the phase structure of a (1+1) and (3+1)-dimensional quark model with four-quark interaction and in the presence of baryon (μB), isospin (μI) and chiral isospin (μI5) chemical potentials. It is shown that the chemical potential μI5 promotes the appearance of the charged PC phase with nonzero baryon density. Results of both models are qualitatively the same, this fact enhances one's confidence in the obtained predictions. It is established that in the large-Nc limit (Nc is the number of colored quarks) there exists a duality correspondence between the chiral symmetry breaking phase and the charged pion condensation one.

Properties of mesons in a strong magnetic field

By extending the [Formula: see text]-derivable approach in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model to a finite magnetic field we calculate the properties of pion, [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] mesons in a magnetic field at finite temperature not only in the quark-antiquark bound state scheme but also in the pion-pion scattering resonant state scenario. Our calculation as a result makes manifest that the masses of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] meson can be nearly degenerate at the pseudo-critical temperature which increases with increasing magnetic field strength, and the [Formula: see text] mass ascends suddenly at almost the same critical temperature. Meanwhile the [Formula: see text] mesons' masses decrease with the temperature but increase with the magnetic field strength. We also check the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation and find that the relation can be violated clearly with increasing temperature, and the effect of the magnetic field becomes pronounced around the critical temperature. With different criteria, we analyze the effect of the magnetic field on the chiral phase transition and find that the pseudo-critical temperature of the chiral phase cross, [Formula: see text], is always enhanced by the magnetic field. Moreover, our calculations indicate that the [Formula: see text] mesons will get melted as the chiral symmetry has not yet been restored, but the [Formula: see text] meson does not disassociate even at very high temperature. Particularly, it is the first to show that there does not exist a vector meson condensate in the QCD vacuum in the pion-pion scattering scheme.