English

Onset Transition to Cold Nuclear Matter from Lattice QCD with Heavy Quarks

High Energy Physics - Lattice 2013-03-27 v2 Nuclear Theory

Abstract

Lattice QCD at finite density suffers from a severe sign problem, which has so far prohibited simulations of the cold and dense regime. Here we study the onset of nuclear matter employing a three-dimensional effective theory derived by combined strong coupling and hopping expansions, which is valid for heavy but dynamical quarks and has a mild sign problem only. Its numerical evaluations agree between a standard Metropolis and complex Langevin algorithm, where the latter is free of the sign problem. Our continuum extrapolated data clearly show a first order phase transition building up at μBmB\mu_B \approx m_B as the temperature approaches zero. An excellent description of the data is achieved by an analytic solution in the strong coupling limit.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1207.3005,
  title  = {Onset Transition to Cold Nuclear Matter from Lattice QCD with Heavy Quarks},
  author = {Michael Fromm and Jens Langelage and Stefano Lottini and Mathias Neuman and Owe Philipsen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.3005},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

Four pages, three figures; uses REVTeX-4. Version accepted by PRL. Title changed upon request by the Editors