2020/06/03 by Nick Evans, Matthew Russell, M. J. Russell · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Critical point (mathematics) #Gauge theory #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Ising model #Mathematical analysis #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Metastability #Phase (matter) #Phase diagram #Phase transition #Physics #Quantum chromodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Theoretical physics #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.102.046018
published as Phys. Rev. D 102, 046018 (2020) · 14 pages, 8 figures
arxiv created 2020/06/03 · openalex created_date 2020/06/12 · openalex publication_date 2020/08/28 · arxiv updated 2020/09/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Holography has allowed the exact solution of a small number of large Nc gauge theories. Among these is an N=2 gauge theory of quarks interacting with N=4 gauge fields. The temperature chemical potential phase diagram for this theory in the presence of a magnetic field is exactly known and shows first and second order chiral symmetry restoration transitions and a critical point. Here we extend this phase diagram to imaginary chemical potential to seek structure at small real \ensuremathμ and imaginary \ensuremathμ that help to reconstruct the large real \ensuremathμ phase structure. We also explore a phenomenologically deformed version of the theory where the critical point can be moved into the imaginary chemical potential plane. In particular, we observe that when the transition is second order in these theories, there are naturally two distinct transitions---one for the onset of density and one for chiral symmetry restoration. In addition, the phase diagram has boundaries of regions where metastable vacua exist and these boundaries, as well as the phase boundaries, converge at the critical point. These observations may point to techniques for the study of the QCD critical point either on the lattice or using heavy ion collision data.