Related papers: Complex saddle points in QCD at finite temperature…
We show the existence of strong (anti)correlations between the topological hot spots and the local values of the trace of the Polyakov loop in $2+1$ flavor QCD with physical quark mass, in the vicinity of the crossover transition…
We study confinement and deconfinement in dense two color QCD by analyzing the dynamics of thermal quarks and gluons. The Polyakov loop is used as a probe of the relevant thermal excitations, distinguishing quark and hadron dominated…
Computations of screening masses in finite-temperature QCD at finite density are plagued by the sign problem and have been performed so far with an imaginary chemical potential. Here, we use a dual formulation of a Polyakov-loop model which…
Numerical studies of the QCD phase diagram at finite baryon chemical potential $\mu_B$ on the lattice are impeded by a sign problem. Effective Polyakov loop theories derived from lattice QCD via combined strong-coupling and hopping…
We propose that in QCD with dynamical quarks, colour deconfinement occurs when an external field induced by the chiral condensate strongly aligns the Polyakov loop. This effect sets in at the chiral symmetry restoration temperature T-chi…
QCD with two flavours of massless colour-sextet quarks is considered as a model for conformal/walking Technicolor. If this theory possess an infrared fixed point, as indicated by 2-loop perturbation theory, it is a conformal(unparticle)…
To leading order in perturbation theory, we solve QCD, defined on a small three sphere in the large N and Nf limit, at finite chemical potential and map out the phase diagram in the (mu,T) plane. The action of QCD is complex in the presence…
We describe how the inclusion of the gluonic Polyakov loop incorporates large gauge invariance and drastically modifies finite temperature calculations in chiral quark models after color neutral states are singled out. This generates an…
We present a semiclassical approach to the SU(N) Yang--Mills theory whose partition function at nonzero temperatures is approximated by a saddle point -- an ensemble of an infinite number of interacting dyons of N kinds. The ensemble is…
The linear-sigma model, in which information about confining gluons is included through the Polyakov-loop potential (PLSM), is considered in order to perform a systematic study for various magnetic properties of QCD matter under extreme…
Starting from Wilson's action, we calculate strong coupling series for the Polyakov loop susceptibility in lattice gauge theories for various small N_\tau in the thermodynamic limit. Analysing the series with Pad\'e approximants, we…
We construct a novel observable for finite temperature QCD that relates confinement and chiral symmetry. It uses phases as boundary conditions for the fermions. We discuss numerical and analytical aspects of this observable, like its…
We explore the influence of heavy quarks on the deconfinement phase transition in an effective model for gluons interacting with dynamical quarks in color SU(3). With decreasing quark mass, the strength of the explicit breaking of the Z(3)…
We describe how the coupling of the gluonic Polyakov loop to quarks solves different inconsistencies in the standard treatment of chiral quark models at finite temperature at the one quark loop level. Large gauge invariance is incorporated…
We describe how the general mechanism of partial deconfinement applies to large-$N$ QCD and the partially-deconfined phase inevitably appears between completely-confined and completely-deconfined phases. Furthermore, we propose how the…
SU($3$) Polyakov linear-sigma model (PLSM) is systematically implemented to characterize the quark-hadron phase structure and to determine various thermodynamic quantities and magnetization of the QCD matter. In mean-field approximation,…
We study the effect of rotation on the confining and chiral properties of QCD using the Polyakov-enhanced linear sigma model coupled to quarks. Working in the homogeneous approximation, we obtain the phase diagram at finite temperature,…
Recently we have made considerable progress in our understanding of the behavior of QCD in extreme conditions of high temperature or large baryon number density. Among the highlights are the prediction of a well-characterized true critical…
The saddle point approximation of the path integral partition functions is an important way of deriving the thermodynamical properties of black holes. However, there are certain black hole models and some mathematically analog mechanical…
We construct an effective action for Polyakov loops using the eigenvalues of the Polyakov loops as the fundamental variables. We assume $% Z(N)$ symmetry in the confined phase, a finite difference in energy densities between the confined…