Related papers: Partial-Symmetry-Breaking Phase Transitions
In the limit of a large number of colors, N_c, we suggest that gauge theories can exhibit several distinct phases at nonzero temperature and quark density. Two are familiar: a cold, dilute phase of confined hadrons, where the pressure is ~…
We study the phase diagram of QCD with the help of order parameters for chiral symmetry breaking and quark confinement. We also introduce a new order parameter for the confinement phase transition, which is related to the quark density. It…
Gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions whose gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken to a finite group enjoy a quantum group symmetry which includes the residual gauge symmetry. This symmetry provides a framework in which fundamental excitations…
Recently there have been proposals to understand features of QCD such as confinement and chiral symmetry breaking by considering supersymmetric versions of the theory with various patterns of soft breaking. In this note we recall that with…
Continuous quantum phase transitions that are beyond the conventional paradigm of fluctuations of a symmetry breaking order parameter are challenging for theory. These phase transitions often involve emergent deconfined gauge fields at the…
I review the deconfining phase transition in an SU(N) gauge theory without quarks. After computing the interface tension between Z(N) degenerate vacua deep in the deconfined phase, I follow Giovannangeli and Korthals Altes, and suggest a…
We study phase transitions in $SU(\infty)$ gauge theories at nonzero temperature using matrix models. Our basic assumption is that the effective potential is dominated by double trace terms for the Polyakov loops. As a function of the…
We consider the partially-deconfined saddle of large-$N$ pure Yang-Mills theory lying between confined and deconfined phases, in which the color degrees of freedom split into confined and deconfined sectors. Based on the microscopic…
We identify a quantum critical point with fractal symmetry whose effective theory eludes the renormalization group framework. We consider the Newman-Moore model with three-body interaction subjected to an external transverse field, which…
We revisit the symmetries of massless two-dimensional adjoint QCD with gauge group $SU(N)$. The dynamics is not sufficiently constrained by the ordinary symmetries and anomalies. Here we show that the theory in fact admits $\sim 2^{2N}$…
The relation between symmetry breaking in non-commutative cut-off field theories and transitions to inhomogeneous phases in condensed matter and in finite density QCD is discussed. The non-commutative dynamics, with its peculiar…
The large N_c N=4 gauge theory with quenched N=2 quark matter in the presence of a magnetic field displays chiral symmetry breaking. We study the temperature and chemical potential dependence of this theory using its gravity dual (based on…
This is a brief summary of topics that were presented as lectures within the programme "New Frontiers in QCD 2010" at the Yukawa Institute of Theoretical Physics in Kyoto. The basic subject is phases and symmetry breaking patterns as they…
Four-dimensional string theories predict in general the existence of light exotic particles with fractional electric charges. Such particles could escape present observations if they are confined by a gauge group of the "hidden" sector into…
Effective Lagrangians for Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) especially suited for understanding deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration at nonzero temperature and matter density are reviewed. These effective theories allow one to study…
Confinement is an intriguing phenomenon prevalent in condensed matter and high-energy physics. Exploring its effect on the far-from-equilibrium criticality of quantum many-body systems is of great interest both from a fundamental and…
We consider a general framework to study holographically the dynamics of fundamental quarks in a confining gauge theory. Flavors are introduced by placing a set of (coincident) branes and antibranes on a background dual to a confining color…
In these lectures I review some basic examples of how the concepts of universality and scaling can be used to study aspects of the chiral and the deconfinement transition, if not in QCD directly but in QCD-like theories. As an example for…
In hep-th/0402219 we considered large N zero-coupling d-dimensional U(N) gauge theories, with N_f matter fields in the fundamental representation on a compact spatial manifold S^{d-1}x time, with N_f/N finite. This class of theories undergo…
I revisit the phase structure of hot and dense matter out of quarks and gluons with some historical consideration on the color deconfinement and chiral phase transitions. My goal is to make clear which part of the QCD phase diagram is under…