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The chicken or the egg; or Who ordered the chiral phase transition?

2001/01/31 by Ian I. Kogan, Alex Kovner, Bayram Tekin
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-lat #hep-ph #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.63.116007

published as Phys.Rev. D63 (2001) 116007 · 22 pages, 7 figures, comments about chiral symmetry at finite nuclear density are added

arxiv created 2001/04/17 · openalex publication_date 2001/05/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We draw an analogy between the deconfining transition in the 2+1 dimensional Georgi-Glashow model and the chiral phase transition in 3+1 dimensional QCD. Based on the detailed analysis of the former (hep-th/0010201) we suggest that the chiral symmetry restoration in QCD at high temperature is driven by the thermal ensemble of baryons and anti-baryons. The chiral symmetry is restored when roughly half of the volume is occupied by the baryons. Surprisingly enough, even though baryons are rather heavy, a crude estimate for the critical temperature gives Tc=180 Mev. In this scenario the binding of the instantons is not the cause but rather a consequence of the chiral symmetry restoration.

Citations