2024/03/04 by Pablo Navarrete, Navarrete, Pablo, Risto Paatelainen +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.02180
openalex publication_date 2024/03/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Nonperturbative inequalities constrain the thermodynamic pressure of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) with its phase-quenched version, a Sign-Problem-free theory amenable to lattice treatment. In the perturbative regime with a small QCD coupling constant αs, one of these inequalities manifests as an O(αs3) difference between the phase-quenched and QCD pressures at large baryon chemical potential. In this work, we generalize state-of-the-art algorithmic techniques used in collider physics in vacuum quantum field theory to address large-scale multiloop computations at finite chemical potential, by direct numerical integration of Feynman diagrams in momentum space. Using this novel approach, we evaluate this O(αs3) difference and show that it is a gauge-independent and small positive number compared to the known perturbative coefficients at this order. This implies that at high baryon densities, phase-quenched lattice simulations can provide a complementary nonperturbative method for accurately determining the pressure of cold quark matter at O(αs3).