Related papers: Aspects of the QCD $\theta$-vacuum
We study the $\theta$-vacuum of QCD using two-flavor chiral perturbation theory ($\chi$PT) in the presence of a uniform, background magnetic field calculating the magnetic field-dependent free energy density, the topological density, the…
The distribution of the QCD topological charge can be described by cumulants, with the lowest one being the topological susceptibility. The vacuum energy density in a theta-vacuum is the generating function for these cumulants. In this…
We investigate the phase structure of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in the vacuum as a function of quark flavor number $N_f$ within the chiral limit. By self-consistently solving the coupled DSEs for the quark and gluon propagators in a…
The first two non-trivial moments of the distribution of the topological charge (or gluonic winding number), i.e., the topological susceptibility and the fourth cumulant, can be computed in lattice QCD simulations and exploited to constrain…
The partition function of QCD is analyzed for an arbitrary number of flavors, N_f, and arbitrary quark masses including the contributions from all topological sectors in the Leutwyler--Smilga regime. For given N_f and arbitrary vacuum…
Taking into account the quadratic in mass terms in the effective chiral lagrangian, we show that, at \theta \sim \pi, the theory with 2 light quarks of equal mass involves two degenerate vacuum states separated by a barrier. For three…
N flavor QED in two dimensions is reduced to a quantum mechanics problem with N degrees of freedom for which the potential is determined by the ground state of the problem itself. The chiral condensate is determined at all values of…
We use the chiral Lagrangian to investigate the global properties of the $N$-flavor QCD vacuum as a function of the $\theta$ parameter. In the case of exact quark degeneracy we find evidence for first order phase transitions at $\theta =…
We analyze the chiral symmetries of flavored quantum chromodynamics in two dimensions and show the existence of chiral condensates within the path-integral approach. The massless and massive cases are discussed as well, for arbitrary finite…
We study the topological susceptibility and fourth cumulant of the QCD vacuum in a background magnetic field using three-flavor chiral perturbation theory ($\chi$PT) for arbitrary quark masses and $n$-flavor $\chi$PT with degenerate quark…
In this work, extending a previous study at zero temperature ($T=0$), we perform a systematic study of the modifications to the QCD vacuum energy density $\epsilon_{vac}$ in the finite-temperature case, above the chiral transition at $T_c$,…
We perform a systematic study of the modifications to the QCD vacuum energy density $\epsilon_{vac}$ in the zero-temperature case ($T=0$) caused by a small, but non-zero, value of the parameter $\theta$, using different effective Lagrangian…
We demonstrate that the QCD topological susceptibility nonperturbatively gets a significant contribution signaled by flavor-nonuniversal quark condensates at around the pseudo-critical temperature of the chiral crossover. It implies a…
We argue that the order of the chiral transition for N_f=2 is a sensitive probe of the QCD vacuum, in particular of the mechanism of color confinement. A strategy is developed to investigate the order of the transition by use of finite size…
We analyze the contribution of the $\eta'(958)$ meson in the first two non-trivial moments of the QCD topological charge distribution, namely, the topological susceptibility and the fourth-order cumulant of the vacuum energy density. We…
We briefly review the effective theory that describes the low energy properties of QCD with three light quarks and a large number of colours, N_c, and then discuss the mechanisms that forbid the Kaplan-Manohar transformation in this…
The study of QCD with two light dynamical fermions is of fundamental importance to understand the mechanism of color confinement. We present results of a numerical investigation on the order of the chiral phase transition with $N_f = 2$ by…
The vacuum of Quantum Chromodynamics is a superposition of degenerate states with different topological numbers that are connected by tunneling (the $\theta$-vacuum). The tunneling events are due to topologically non-trivial configurations…
Within the framework of SU(2) chiral perturbation theory, we derive the general solution of the QCD $\theta$-vacuum for an arbitrary vacuum phase, explicitly incorporating isospin-breaking effects from the light quark mass difference, and…
We study $SU(N)$ Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in 3+1 dimensions with $N_f$ degenerate fundamental quarks with mass $m$ and a $\theta$-parameter. For generic $m$ and $\theta$ the theory has a single gapped vacuum. However, as $\theta$ is…