Related papers: Fresh look on triality
In a background independent theory without boundary, physical observables may be defined with respect to dynamical reference systems. However, I argue here that there may be a symmetry that exchanges the degrees of freedom of the physical…
We study the meson spectra in the excited QCD vacua, denominated replicas. We find all mesons have real masses, with no tachyons, thus showing the QCD replicas are indeed metastable.
We discuss the thermodynamics of gluons in the background of static quark sources. In order to do so we formulate the quenched limit of QCD at non-zero baryon number. A first numerical analysis of this system shows that it undergoes a…
We study dynamical symmetry breaking in three-dimensional QED with a Chern-Simons (CS) term, considering the screening effect of $N$ flavor fermions. We find a new phase of the vacuum, in which both the fermion mass and a magnetic field are…
These lectures provide an overview of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the SU(3) gauge theory of the strong interactions. The running of the strong coupling and the associated property of Asymptotic Freedom are analyzed. Some selected…
Here I review vectorial type condensation due to a non zero chemical potential associated to some of the global conserved charges of the theory. The phase structure is very rich since three distinct phases exists depending on the value…
QCD-like theories can be engineered to remain in a confined phase when compactified on an arbitrarily small circle, where their features may be studied quantitatively in a controlled fashion. Previous work has elucidated the generation of a…
Topological objects resulting from symmetry breakdown may be either stable or metastable depending on the pattern of symmetry breaking. However, if they trap zero-energy modes of fermions, and in the process acquire non-integer fermionic…
In two-dimensional topological phases, quasiparticle excitations can carry fractional symmetry quantum numbers. We generalize this notion of symmetry fractionalization to three-dimensional topological phases, in particular to loop…
Two distinct phase transitions occur at different temperatures in QCD with adjoint fermions (aQCD): deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration. In this model, quarks do no explicitely break the center Z(3) symmetry and therefore the…
Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) admits a topological $\bar{\theta}$ term that violates charge-parity ($CP$) symmetry, yet experiments indicate that $\bar{\theta}$ is extremely small. To investigate this problem in a controlled setting, we…
Despite intense experimental and theoretical research, the QCD phase diagram at finite baryon density remains to a large extent unexplored. From the theoretical side, the obvious non-perturbative approach is lattice QCD simulations, which…
We study dynamical tunneling in a near-integrable Hamiltonian with three degrees of freedom. The model Hamiltonian does not have any discrete symmetry. Despite this lack of symmetry we show that the mixing of near-degenerate quantum states…
The phase structure of zero temperature twisted mass lattice QCD is investigated. We find strong metastabilities in the plaquette observable when the untwisted quark mass assumes positive or negative values. We provide interpretations of…
We have constructed a general theory describing the topological quantum phase transitions in 3D systems with broken inversion symmetry. While the consideration of the system's codimension generally predicts the appearance of a stable…
The first evidence for Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong interactions, came from the systematics of baryon and meson spectroscopy. An important early observation was the apparent absence of exotics, baryons requiring…
I briefly review some aspects of the Quantum Chromo Dynamics phase diagram at non zero temperature and quark chemical potential. I then suggest new possible phases which can appear in strongly interacting theories at non zero chemical…
A study of two-dimensional QCD on a spatial circle with Majorana fermions in the adjoint representation of the gauge groups SU(2) and SU(3) has been performed. The main emphasis is put on the symmetry properties related to the homotopically…
Axion models with generation-dependent Peccei-Quinn charges can lead to flavor-changing neutral currents, thus motivating QCD axion searches at precision flavor experiments. We rigorously derive limits on the most general effective…
We derive exact constraints relating QCD at nonzero baryon chemical potential and temperature to QCD at nonzero isospin chemical potential and temperature, a theory which can be simulated by conventional methods. These results challenge the…