Local CP-violation and electric charge separation by magnetic fields from lattice QCD

We study local CP-violation on the lattice by measuring the local correlation between the topological charge density and the electric dipole moment of quarks, induced by a constant external magnetic field. This correlator is found to increase linearly with the external field, with the coefficient of proportionality depending only weakly on temperature. Results are obtained on lattices with various spacings, and are extrapolated to the continuum limit after the renormalization of the observables is carried out. This renormalization utilizes the gradient flow for the quark and gluon fields. Our findings suggest that the strength of local CP-violation in QCD with physical quark masses is about an order of magnitude smaller than a model prediction based on nearly massless quarks in domains of constant gluon backgrounds with topological charge. We also show numerical evidence that the observed local CP-violation correlates with spatially extended electric dipole structures in the QCD vacuum.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures. Additional lattice results about the induced electric dipole structure, extended model description, specified terminology. Version published in JHE

QCD-Thermodynamics using 5-dim Gravity

We calculate the critical temperature and free energy of the gluon plasma using the dilaton potential arXiv:0911.0627[hep-ph] in the gravity theory of AdS/QCD. The finite temperature observables are calculated in two ways: first, from the Page-Hawking computation of the free energy, and secondly using the Bekenstein-Hawking proportionality of the entropy with the area of the horizon. Renormalization is well defined, because the T=0 theory has asymptotic freedom. We further investigate the change of the critical temperature with the number of flavours induced by the change of the running coupling constant in the quenched theory. The finite temperature behaviour of the speed of sound, spatial string tension and vacuum expectation value of the Polyakov loop follow from the corresponding string theory in AdS_5.Comment: 38 pages, 12 figure

Transition temperature and the equation of state from lattice QCD, Wuppertal-Budapest results

The QCD transition is studied on lattices up to $N_t=16$. The chiral condensate is presented as a function of the temperature, and the corresponding transition temperature is extracted. The equation of state is determined on lattices with $N_t=6,8,10$ and at some temperature values with $N_t=12$. The pressure and the trace anomaly are presented as functions of the temperature in the range 100 ...1000 MeV . Using the same configurations we determine the continuum extrapolated phase diagram of QCD on the $\mu-T$ plane for small to moderate chemical potentials. Two transition lines are defined with two quantities, the chiral condensate and the strange quark number susceptibility.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings for Quark Matter 201

Thermodynamic properties of QCD in external magnetic fields

We consider the effect of strong external electromagnetic fields on thermodynamic observables in QCD, through lattice simulations with 1+1+1 flavors of staggered quarks at physical quark masses. Continuum extrapolated results are presented for the light quark condensates and for their tensor polarizations, as functions of the temperature and the magnetic field. We find the light condensates to undergo inverse magnetic catalysis in the transition region, in a manner that the transition temperature decreases with growing magnetic field. We also compare the results to other approaches and lattice simulations. Furthermore, we relate the tensor polarization to the spin part of the magnetic susceptibility of the QCD vacuum, and show that this contribution is diamagnetic.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, talks presented by FB and GE at Xth Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum, 8-12 October 2012, TUM Campus Garching, Munich, German

QCD quark condensate in external magnetic fields

We present a comprehensive analysis of the light condensates in QCD with 1+1+1 sea quark flavors (with mass-degenerate light quarks of different electric charges) at zero and nonzero temperatures of up to 190 MeV and external magnetic fields B<1 GeV^2/e. We employ stout smeared staggered fermions with physical quark masses and extrapolate the results to the continuum limit. At low temperatures we confirm the magnetic catalysis scenario predicted by many model calculations, while around the crossover the condensate develops a complex dependence on the external magnetic field, resulting in a decrease of the transition temperature.Comment: slight changes in the text, version accepted for publication in PRD. 5 pages, 5 figure

Magnetic susceptibility of QCD at zero and at finite temperature from the lattice

The response of the QCD vacuum to a constant external (electro)magnetic field is studied through the tensor polarization of the chiral condensate and the magnetic susceptibility at zero and at finite temperature. We determine these quantities using lattice configurations generated with the tree-level Symanzik improved gauge action and N-f 1 + 1 + 1 flavors of stout smeared staggered quarks with physical masses. We carry out the renormalization of the observables under study and perform the continuum limit both at T > 0 and at T = 0, using different lattice spacings. Finite size effects are studied by using various spatial lattice volumes. The magnetic susceptibilities chi(f) reveal a spin-diamagnetic behavior; we obtain at zero temperature chi(u) = -(2.08 +/- 0.08) GeV-2, chi(d) = -(2.02 +/- 0.09) GeV-2 and chi(s) = -(3.4 +/- 1.4) GeV-2 for the up, down and strange quarks, respectively, in the (MS) over bar scheme at a renormalization scale of 2 GeV. We also find the polarization to change smoothly with the temperature in the confinement phase and then to drastically reduce around the transition region

The QCD phase diagram for external magnetic fields

The effect of an external (electro)magnetic field on the finite temperature transition of QCD is studied. We generate configurations at various values of the quantized magnetic flux with $N_f=2+1$ flavors of stout smeared staggered quarks, with physical masses. Thermodynamic observables including the chiral condensate and susceptibility, and the strange quark number susceptibility are measured as functions of the field strength. We perform the renormalization of the studied observables and extrapolate the results to the continuum limit using $N_t=6,8$ and 10 lattices. We also check for finite volume effects using various lattice volumes. We find from all of our observables that the transition temperature $T_c$ significantly decreases with increasing magnetic field. This is in conflict with various model calculations that predict an increasing $T_c(B)$. From a finite volume scaling analysis we find that the analytic crossover that is present at B=0 persists up to our largest magnetic fields $eB \approx 1 \textmd{GeV}^2$, and that the transition strength increases mildly up to this $eB\approx1 \textmd{GeV}^2$.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figure

An effective chiral Hadron-Quark Equation of State

We construct an effective model for the QCD equation of state, taking into account chiral symmetry restoration as well as the deconfinement phase transition. The correct asymptotic degrees of freedom at the high and low temperature limits are included (quarks $\leftrightarrow$ hadrons). The model shows a rapid crossover for both order parameters, as is expected from lattice calculations. We then compare the thermodynamic properties of the model at $\mu_B=0$ which turn out to be in qualitative agreement with lattice data, while apparent quantitative differences can be attributed to hadronic contributions and excluded volume corrections. Furthermore we discuss the effects of a repulsive vector type quark interaction at finite baryon number densities on the resulting phase diagram of the model. Our current model is able to reproduce a first-order liquid gas phase transition as expected, but does not show any signs of a first order deconfinement or chiral phase transition. Both transitions rather appear as a very wide crossover in which heavily medium modified hadron coexist with free quarks.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures Version accepted by J. Phys.

DGP brane cosmology and quark-hadron phase transition

In the standard picture of cosmology it is predicted that a phase transition, associated with chiral symmetry breaking after the electroweak transition, has occurred at approximately 10 \mu seconds after the Big Bang to convert a plasma of free quarks and gluons into hadrons. We consider the quark-hadron phase transition in a DGP brane world scenario within an effective model of QCD. We study the evolution of the physical quantities useful for the study of the early universe, namely, the energy density, temperature and the scale factor before, during, and after the phase transition. Also, due to the high energy density in the early universe, we consider the quadratic energy density term that appears in the Friedmann equation. In DGP brane models such a term corresponds to the negative branch (\epsilon=-1) of the Friedmann equation when the Hubble radius is much smaller than the crossover length in 4D and 5D regimes. We show that for different values of the cosmological constant on a brane, \lambda, phase transition occurs and results in decreasing the effective temperature of the quark-gluon plasma and of the hadronic fluid. We then consider the quark-hadron transition in the smooth crossover regime at high and low temperatures and show that such a transition occurs along with decreasing the effective temperature of the quark-gluon plasma during the process of the phase transition.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, two sections and references added. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1103.007

Impact of resonance decays on critical point signals in net-proton fluctuations

The non-monotonic beam energy dependence of the higher cumulants of net-proton fluctuations is a widely studied signature of the conjectured presence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram. In this work we study the effect of resonance decays on critical fluctuations. We show that resonance effects reduce the signatures of critical fluctuations, but that for reasonable parameter choices critical effects in the net-proton cumulants survive. The relative role of resonance decays has a weak dependence on the order of the cumulants studied with a slightly stronger suppression of critical effects for higher-order cumulants