Nonlocality effects on spin-one pairing patterns in two-flavor color superconducting quark matter and compact stars applications

We study the influence of nonlocality in the interaction on two spin one pairing patterns of two-flavor quark matter: the anisotropic blue color paring besides the usual two color superconducting matter (2SCb), in which red and green colors are paired, and the color spin locking phase (CSL). The effect of nonlocality on the gaps is rather large and the pairings exhibit a strong dependence on the form factor of the interaction, especially in the low density region. The application of these small spin-one condensates for compact stars is analyzed: the early onset of quark matter in the nonlocal models may help to stabilize hybrid star configurations. While the anisotropic blue quark pairing does not survive a big asymmetry in flavor space as imposed by the charge neutrality condition, the CSL phase as a flavor independent pairing can be realized as neutral matter in compact star cores. However, smooth form factors and the missmatch between the flavor chemical potential in neutral matter make the effective gaps of the order of magnitude $\simeq 10$ keV, and a more systematic analysis is needed to decide whether such small gaps could be consistent with the cooling phenomenology.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, corrected version with revised parameterizatio

η\eta and η′\eta' mesons in the Dyson-Schwinger approach at finite temperature

We study the temperature dependence of the pseudoscalar meson properties in a relativistic bound-state approach exhibiting the chiral behavior mandated by QCD. Concretely, we adopt the Dyson-Schwinger approach with a rank-2 separable model interaction. After extending the model to the strange sector and fixing its parameters at zero temperature, T=0, we study the T-dependence of the masses and decay constants of all ground-state mesons in the pseudoscalar nonet. Of chief interest are $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$. The influence of the QCD axial anomaly on them is successfully obtained through the Witten-Veneziano relation at T=0. The same approach is then extended to T>0, using lattice QCD results for the topological susceptibility. The most conspicuous finding is an increase of the $\eta^\prime$ mass around the chiral restoration temperature $T_{\rm Ch}$, which would suggest a suppression of $\eta^\prime$ production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The increase of the $\eta^\prime$ mass may also indicate that the extension of the Witten-Veneziano relation to finite temperatures becomes unreliable around and above $T_{\rm Ch}$. Possibilities of an improved treatment are discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figure

Thermodynamics of (2+1)-flavor QCD: Confronting Models with Lattice Studies

The Polyakov-quark-meson (PQM) model, which combines chiral as well as deconfinement aspects of strongly interacting matter is introduced for three light quark flavors. An analysis of the chiral and deconfinement phase transition of the model and its thermodynamics at finite temperatures is given. Three different forms of the effective Polyakov loop potential are considered. The findings of the (2+1)-flavor model investigations are confronted to corresponding recent QCD lattice simulations of the RBC-Bielefeld, HotQCD and Wuppertal-Budapest collaborations. The influence of the heavier quark masses, which are used in the lattice calculations, is taken into account. In the transition region the bulk thermodynamics of the PQM model agrees well with the lattice data.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables; minor changes, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Diquark Condensates and Compact Star Cooling

The effect of color superconductivity on the cooling of quark stars and neutron stars with large quark cores is investigated. Various known and new quark-neutrino processes are studied. As a result, stars being in the color flavor locked (CFL) color superconducting phase cool down extremely fast. Quark stars with no crust cool down too rapidly in disagreement with X-ray data. The cooling of stars being in the N_f =2 color superconducting (2SC) phase with a crust is compatible with existing X-ray data. Also the cooling history of stars with hypothetic pion condensate nuclei and a crust does not contradict the data.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Quark Gluon Bags as Reggeons

The influence of the medium dependent finite width of QGP bags on their equation of state is analyzed within an exactly solvable model. It is argued that the large width of the QGP bags not only explains the observed deficit in the number of hadronic resonances, but also clarifies the reason why the heavy QGP bags cannot be directly observed as metastable states in a hadronic phase. The model allows us to estimate the minimal value of the width of QGP bags from a variety of the lattice QCD data and get that the minimal resonance width at zero temperature is about 600 MeV, whereas the minimal resonance width at the Hagedorn temperature is about 2000 MeV. As shown these estimates are almost insensitive to the number of the elementary degrees of freedom. The recent lattice QCD data are analyzed and it is found that besides sigma T**4 term the lattice QCD pressure contains T-linear and T**4 ln T terms in the range of temperatures between 240 MeV and 420 MeV. The presence of the last term in the pressure bears almost no effect on the width estimates. Our analysis shows that at hight temperatures the average mass and width of the QGP bags behave in accordance with the upper bound of the Regge trajectory asymptotics (the linear asymptotics), whereas at low temperatures they obey the lower bound of the Regge trajectory asymptotics (the square root one). Since the model explicitly contains the Hagedorn mass spectrum, it allows us to remove an existing contradiction between the finite number of hadronic Regge families and the Hagedorn idea of the exponentially growing mass spectrum of hadronic bags.Comment: One section removed, a few references added, the Regge trajectories of free QGP bags are considere

Dyson-Schwinger Equation Approach to the QCD Deconfinement Transition and J/Psi Dissociation

We consider an extension of the finite-temperature Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSE) approach to heavy mesons and quarkonia and apply it to calculate the cross section for the J/Psi breakup reaction J/Psi + pi --> D + D. We study the effects of chiral symmetry restoration in the light quark sector on this process and obtain a critical enhancement of the reaction rate at the chiral/ deconfinement transition. Implications for the kinetics of charmonium production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions are discussed with particular emphasis on the recently observed anomalous J/Psi suppression as a possible signal for quark matter formation.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, sprocl.sty, to appear in: "Progress in Nonequilibrium Green's functions", M. Bonitz (Ed.), World Scientific, Singapore, 200