Phase Transitions in SO(3) Lattice Gauge Theory

The phase diagram of SO(3) lattice gauge theory is investigated by Monte Carlo techniques on both symmetric and asymmetric lattices with a view (i) to understanding the relationship between the bulk transition and the deconfinement transition, and (ii) to resolving the current ambiguity about the nature of the high temperature phase. A number of tests, including an introduction of a magnetic field and measurement of different correlation functions in the phases with positive and negative values for the adjoint Polyakov line, lead to the conclusion that the two phases correspond to the same physical state. Studies on lattices of different sizes reveal only one phase transition for this theory on all of them and it appears to have a deconfining nature.Comment: Latex 19 pages, 9 figures. Minor changes in introduction and summary sections. The version that appeared in journa

Z2 Monopoles, Vortices, and the Deconfinement Transition in Mixed Action SU(2) Gauge Theory

Adding separate chemical potentials lambda and gamma for Z2 monopoles and vortices respectively in the Villain form of the mixed fundamental-adjoint action for the SU(2) lattice gauge theory, we investigate their role in the interplay between the deconfinement and bulk phase transitions using Monte Carlo techniques. Setting lambda to be nonzero, we find that the line of deconfinement transitions is shifted in the coupling plane but it behaves curiously also like the bulk transition line for large enough adjoint coupling, as for lambda=0. In a narrow range of couplings, however, we find separate deconfinement and bulk phase transitions on the same lattice for nonzero and large lambda, suggesting the two to be indeed coincident in the region where a first order deconfinement phase transition is seen. In the limit of large lambda and gamma, we obtain only lines of second order deconfinement phase transitions, as expected from universality.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures include

Quark-Gluon Plasma: Status of Heavy Ion Physics

Lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD), defined on a discrete space time lattice, leads to a spectacular non-perturbative prediction of a new state of matter, called quark-gluon plasma (QGP), at sufficiently high temperatures or equivalently large energy densities. The experimental programs of CERN, Geneva and BNL, New York of relativistic heavy ion collisions are expected to produce such energy densities, thereby providing us a chance to test the above prediction. After a brief introduction of the necessary theoretical concepts, I will present a critical review of the experimental results already obtained by the various experiments in order to examine whether QGP has already been observed by them.Comment: 11 Pages, LaTeX, Plenary talk given at 6th Workshop in High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP 6), Chennai (Madras), India, 3-15 Jan 2000 To appear in Pramana, Journal of Physic

The continuum limit of quark number susceptibilities

We report the continuum limit of quark number susceptibilities in quenched QCD. Deviations from ideal gas behaviour at temperature T increase as the lattice spacing is decreased from T/4 to T/6, but a further decrease seems to have very little effect. The measured susceptibilities are 20% lower than the ideal gas values, and also 10% below the hard thermal loop (HTL) results. The off-diagonal susceptibility is several orders of magnitude smaller than the HTL results. We verify a strong correlation between the lowest screening mass and the susceptibility. We also show that the quark number susceptibilities give a reasonable account of the Wroblewski parameter, which measures the strangeness yield in a heavy-ion collision.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Potts Flux Tube Model at Nonzero Chemical Potential

We model the deconfinement phase transition in quantum chromodynamics at nonzero baryon number density and large quark mass by extending the flux tube model (three-state, three-dimensional Potts model) to nonzero chemical potential. In a direct numerical simulation we confirm mean-field-theory predictions that the deconfinement transition does not occur in a baryon-rich environment.Comment: 14 pp RevTeX, 10 Postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev D. (Corrected some typographical errors.

A transport coefficient: the electrical conductivity

I describe the lattice determination of the electrical conductivity of the quark gluon plasma. Since this is the first extraction of a transport coefficient with a degree of control over errors, I next use this to make estimates of other transport related quantities using simple kinetic theory formulae. The resulting estimates are applied to fluctuations, ultra-soft photon spectra and the viscosity. Dimming of ultra-soft photons is exponential in the mean free path, and hence is a very sensitive probe of transport.Comment: Talk given in ICPAQGP 2005, SINP, Kolkat

Quark Number Susceptibility and Thermodynamics in HTL approximation

In HTL perturbation theory we obtain leading order quark number susceptibility as a response to an external disturbance, viz., chemical potential (\mu) that generates density fluctuation, which is related to the correlation function through the thermodynamic sum rule associated with the symmetry of the system. We also obtain various thermodynamic quantities in leading order.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Talk given at the 6th ICPAQGP-2010, Goa, India, December 6-10, 201

Quantum structure of the non-Abelian Weizsacker-Williams field for a very large nucleus

We consider the McLerran-Venugopalan model for calculation of the small-$x$ part of the gluon distribution function for a very large ultrarelativistic nucleus at weak coupling. We construct the Feynman diagrams which correspond to the classical Weizs\"{a}cker-Williams field found previously [Yu. V. Kovchegov, Phys. Rev. D 54, 5463 (1996)] as a solution of the classical equations of motion for the gluon field in the light-cone gauge. Analyzing these diagrams we obtain a limit for the McLerran-Venugopalan model. We show that as long as this limit is not violated a classical field can be used for calculation of scattering amplitudes.Comment: 13 pages, REVTeX, 9 figure

Introduction of the chemical potential in the overlap formalism

We investigate the possibility of coupling a chemical potential only to the physical chiral fermions on the lattice starting from the many body state description of overlap fermions. After developing the formalism for a chiral gauge theory, we focus our attention on the case of free fermions coupled to a vector like chemical potential and discuss the issue of zero temperature divergences.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, minor changes to v1, version to appear in JHE

Heavy Flavor Hadrons in Statistical Hadronization of Strangeness-rich QGP

We study b, c quark hadronization from QGP. We obtain the yields of charm and bottom flavored hadrons within the statistical hadronization model. The important novel feature of this study is that we take into account the high strangeness and entropy content of QGP, conserving strangeness and entropy yields at hadronization.Comment: v2 expended: 20 pages, 23 figures, 5 tables, in press EPJ-