Related papers: Is there still a strong CP problem?
String compactifications on an orbi-folded torus with complex structure give rise to chiral fermions, spontaneously broken CP, modular invariance. We show that this allows simple effective theories of flavour and CP where: i) the QCD angle…
The quark condensate in nuclear matter contains a term of order $\rho m_\pi$, arising from the contribution of low-momentum virtual pions to the $\pi N$ sigma commutator. Standard treatments of QCD sum rules for a nucleon in matter generate…
Two different matrix models for QCD with a non-vanishing quark chemical potential are shown to be equivalent by mapping the corresponding partition functions. The equivalence holds in the phase with broken chiral symmetry. It is exact in…
We show using the Hamiltonian formalism that if parity is a good symmetry of QCD, then the strong CP phase $\bar{\theta}$ must be $0$ or $\pi$. We find that for $P$ to be a physical symmetry, it must leave the Hilbert space…
We argue that instantons play a crucial role in triggering the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in the physics of the three light quarks in quantum chromodynamics. However, instantons may also play an essential role in our…
We discuss the critical behaviour of strongly interacting matter close to the QCD phase transition. Emphasis is put on a presentation of results from lattice calculations that illustrate deconfining as well as chiral symmetry restoring…
In the anomaly equation for the singlet axial current the chiral limit of the quark mass term does not vanish but comprises contribution from fermion zero modes whose integral exactly cancels the topological charge arising from the…
When a quantum field theory has a symmetry, global or local like in gauge theories, in the tree or classical approximation formal manipulations lead to believe that the symmetry can also be implemented in the full quantum theory, provided…
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…
The non-perturbative Schwinger-Dyson equation is used to show that chiral symmetry is dynamically broken in QED at weak gauge couplings when an external uniform magnetic field is present. A complete analysis of this phenomenon may shed…
A standing mystery in the Standard Model is the unnatural smallness of the strong CP violating phase. A massless up quark has long been proposed as one potential solution. A lattice calculation of the constants of the chiral Lagrangian…
We study the phase structure of the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model in the plane of temperature and baryon chemical potential, including the effect of a nonzero current quark mass. Our study is performed in the decompactified limit of the…
Chiral symmetry in QCD can be simultaneously in Wigner and Goldstone modes, depending on the part of the spectrum examined. The transition regime between both, exploiting for example the onset of parity doubling in the high baryon spectrum,…
QCD in a five-dimensional sliced bulk with chiral extra-quarks on the boundaries is generically free from the strong CP problem. Accidental axial symmetry is naturally present except for suppressed breaking interactions, which plays a role…
Starting from a weak basis in which the up (or down) quark matrix is diagonal, we obtain an exact set of equations for the quark mass matrix elements in terms of known observables. We make a numerical analysis of the down (up) quark mass…
Thermal pion fluctuations, in principle, can completely disorder the phase of the quark condensate and thus restore chiral symmetry. If this happens before the quark condensate melts, strongly-interacting matter will be in the pseudogap…
The delta-regime of QCD is characterised by light quarks in a small spatial box, but a large extent in (Euclidean) time. In this setting a specific variant of chiral perturbation theory - the delta-expansion - applies, based on a quantum…
We formulate general conditions under which the strong CP problem is solved by spontaneous CP violation. Quark-mass matrix elements are polynomials in the CP-breaking order parameters, engineered such that their determinant is a real…
We study the QCD phase diagram, in particular we study the critical points of the two main QCD phase transitions, confinement and chiral symmetry breaking. Confinement drives chiral symmetry breaking, and, due to the finite quark mass, at…
We apply optimized perturbation theory to the quark-meson model at finite temperature T and quark chemical potential mu. The effective potential is calculated to one loop both in the chiral limit and at the physical point and used to study…