Related papers: Quark Masses and Chiral Symmetry
I discuss the mass parameters appearing in the gauge theory of the strong interactions, concentrating on the two flavor case. I show how the effect of the CP violating parameter $\theta$ is simply interpreted in terms of the state of the…
I explore the rich phase diagram of two-flavor QCD as a function of the quark masses. The theory involves three parameters, including one that is CP violating. As the masses vary, regions of both first and second order transitions are…
I review some aspects of the interplay between anomalies and chiral symmetry. The quantum anomaly that breaks the U(1) axial symmetry of massless QCD leaves behind a flavor-singlet discrete chiral invariance. When the mass is turned on this…
Considered as a function of the quark mases, two-flavor QCD depends on three parameters, including one that is CP violating. As the masses vary to unphysical values, regions of both first- and second-order phase transitions are expected.…
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 =…
The quantum anomaly that breaks the U(1) axial symmetry of massless multi-flavored QCD leaves behind a discrete flavor-singlet chiral invariance. With massive quarks, this residual symmetry has a close connection with the strong…
We give an overview of recent progress in the study of fermion mass and flavor mixing phenomena. The hints exhibited by the quark and lepton mass spectra towards possible underlying flavor symmetries, from which realistic models of mass…
We explore the phase structure of a chiral model of constituent quarks and gluons implementing scale symmetry breaking at finite temperature and chemical potential. In this model the chiral dynamics is intimately linked to the trace anomaly…
I discuss several aspects of CP non-invariance in the strongly interacting theory of quarks and gluons. I use a simple effective Lagrangian technique to map out the region of quark masses where CP symmetry is spontaneously broken. I then…
Flavor mixing is scrutinized at 1-loop in a SU(2)_L gauge theory of massive fermions. The main issue is to cope with kinetic-like, momentum (p^2) dependent effective interactions that arise at this order. They spoil the unitarity of the…
We show that large fluctuations of D mesons kinetic energy (or momentum) distributions might be a signature of a phase transition to the quark gluon plasma (QGP). In particular, a jump in the variance of the momenta or kinetic energy, as a…
When the quark masses are lighter than those in QCD, the standard lore is that a chiral transition of first order must emerge for three, light flavors. Recently, however, numerical simulations on the lattice suggest that the chiral…
The first order chiral phase transition for quark matter with flavor imbalance is studied using the Linear sigma model with quarks, also known as Quark-meson model. Special attention is paid to the role of the scalar isovector meson. The…
The mass sensitivity of the chiral phase transition of QCD with and without axial $U_A(1)$-symmetry breaking at vanishing and finite quark chemical potential is investigated. To focus on the low-energy sector of QCD, a quark-meson model…
We investigate the phase structure of QCD with 3 degenerate quark flavors as function of the degenerate quark masses at vanishing baryon number density. We use the Highly Improved Staggered Quarks on lattices with temporal extent $N_{t}=6$…
We determine the phase diagram and chiral condensate for lattice QCD with two flavors of twisted-mass fermions in the presence of nondegenerate up and down quarks, discretization errors and a nonzero value of $\Theta_{\rm QCD}$. Although…
We consider the quark-mass dependence of the baryon octet and decuplet ground state masses. It is predicted that QCD dynamics implies a first order transition when increasing the strange quark mass from its chiral limit towards its physical…
We discuss a new general class of mass matrix ansatz that respects the fermion mass hierarchy and calculability of the flavor mixing matrix. This is a generalization and justification of the various specific forms of the mass matrix by…
In this conference proceeding, I discuss in detail the deconfinement to quark matter that takes place at large densities and/or temperatures. The first-order phase transition that is assumed to appear beyond a critical point gives rise to…
We investigate the phase structure of lattice QCD for the general number of flavors in the parameter space of gauge coupling constant and quark mass, employing the one-plaquette gauge action and the standard Wilson quark action. Performing…