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