Melting of scalar mesons and black-hole quasinormal modes in a holographic QCD model

A holographic model for QCD is employed to investigate the effects of the gluon condensate on the spectrum and melting of scalar mesons. We find the evolution of the free energy density with the temperature, and the result shows that the temperature of the confinement/deconfinement transition is sensitive to the gluon-condensate parameter. The spectral functions (SPFs) are also obtained and show a series of peaks in the low-temperature regime, indicating the presence of quasiparticle states associated to the mesons, while the number of peaks decreases with the increment of the temperature, characterizing the quasiparticle melting. In the dual gravitational description, the scalar mesons are identified with the black-hole quasinormal modes (QNMs). We obtain the spectrum of QNMs and the dispersion relations corresponding to the scalar-field perturbations of the gravitational background, and find their dependence with the gluon-condensate parameter.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures, 5 table

Vector meson quasinormal modes in a finite-temperature AdS/QCD model

We study the spectrum of vector mesons in a finite temperature plasma. The plasma is holographically described by a black hole AdS/QCD model. We compute the boundary retarded Green's function using AdS/CFT prescriptions. The corresponding thermal spectral functions show quasiparticle peaks at low temperatures. Then we calculate the quasinormal modes of vector mesons in the soft-wall black hole geometry and analyse their temperature and momentum dependences.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figure

Melting of heavy vector mesons and quasinormal modes in a finite density plasma from holography

In this work, we investigate the melting of charmonium states within a holographic QCD model in the context of Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton (EMD) theory. In the dual field theory, the model describes the heavy mesons inside a finite temperature and density medium. First, we calculate the spectrum at zero temperature. Then, at finite temperature, we obtain the spectral functions, where the heavy vector meson are represented by peaks. We show that the charmonium melts down at temperatures above the confinement/deconfinement temperature of the quark-gluon plasma. We also observe that the chemical potential speeds up the melting process. This finding is in agreement with results previously reported in the literature. In the gravitational side of the theory, we solve the perturbation equations in the hydrodynamics limit. From this result, we read off the diffusion coefficient by comparing the dispersion relation against the corresponding result obtained in the dual field theory. We also investigate the behavior of the diffusion coefficient as a function of the temperature. The perturbation equations are solved numerically, in order to get the quasinormal frequencies. We report the emergence of a new mode whose real part increases rapidly at a certain value of the chemical potential while its imaginary part decreases with the increasing of the chemical potential. Finally, by comparing against results obtained in the conformal plasma, we observe that the real part of the frequency increases, while the imaginary part decreases when we consider the non-conformal plasma.Comment: 39 pages, 15 figures, 5 table

A dynamical holographic QCD model for spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and confinement

In this paper, we present a holographic realization of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and confinement. The latter is realized by building a solution of 5d Einstein-dilaton gravity leading to a confining quark antiquark potential. The 4d currents and the quark mass operator associated with chiral symmetry breaking and creation of meson states are mapped to 5d fields whose dynamics is given by a non-Abelian Higgs action. We introduce a non-minimal dilaton coupling to the tachyon potential which has two parameters, one of them controlling the presence or absence of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and the other controlling the sign of the chiral condensate as the quark mass grows. We calculate the masses of vector, scalar, axial-vector and pseudoscalar mesons, focusing on the effect of chiral symmetry breaking on the spectrum. In the chiral limit we identify the emergence of a massless state in the pseudoscalar meson spectrum, i.e., the pion. We calculate all meson decay constants and confirm that the pion satisfies the Gell-Mann-Oakes relation in the light quark regime.Comment: 36 pages, 20 figure

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries(1,2). However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world(3) and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health(4,5). However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol-which is a marker of cardiovascular riskchanged from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million-4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.Peer reviewe