Aspects of parity, CP, and time reversal violation in hot QCD

We discuss various aspects of parity, CP, and time reversal invariances in QCD. In particular, we focus attention on the previously proposed possibility that these experimentally established symmetries of strong interactions may be broken at finite temperature and/or density. This would have dramatic signatures in relativistic heavy ion collisions; we describe some of the most promising signals.Comment: Latex; 14 pages + 3 figs. Talk given at SEWM2000, Marseille, June 14-17 2000 and ISMD2000, Tihany, October 9-15 200

Anomalous amplitudes in a thermal bath

I review the implications of the axial anomaly in a thermal bath. I assume that the Adler-Bardeen theorem applies at nonzero temperature, so that the divergence of the axial current remains is independent of temperature. Nevertheless, I argue that while the anomaly doesn't change with temperature, ``anomalous'' mesonic couplings do. This is verified by explicit calculations in a low temperature expansion, and near the chiral phase transition.Comment: 11 pages, PTPTeX, to appear in the Proceedings of YKIS '9

Hard thermal loops effective action for piO -> gamma gamma

I consider the low temperature correction to the anomalous coupling of a neutral pion to two photons from an effective Lagrangian point of view.Comment: 4 pages, revtex. Talk given by M. Tytgat at the 5th International Workshop on Thermal Field Theories and their Applications, Regensburg (Germany), August 199

Color, Spin and Flavor Diffusion in Quark-Gluon Plasmas

In weakly interacting quark-gluon plasmas diffusion of color is found to be much slower than the diffusion of spin and flavor because color is easily exchanged by the gluons in the very singular forward scattering processes. If the infrared divergence is cut off by a magnetic mass, $m_{mag}\sim \alpha_sT$, the color diffusion is $D_{color}\sim (\alpha_s\ln(1/\alpha_s)T)^{-1}$, a factor $\alpha_s$ smaller than spin and flavor diffusion. A similar effect is expected in electroweak plasmas above $M_W$ due to $W^\pm$ exchanges. The color conductivity in quark-gluon plasmas and the electrical conductivity in electroweak plasmas are correspondingly small in relativistic heavy ion collisions and the very early universe.Comment: 5 pages, no figure

Anisotropic admixture in color-superconducting quark matter

The analysis of color-superconducting two-flavor deconfined quark matter at moderate densities is extended to include a particular spin-1 Cooper pairing of those quarks which do not participate in the standard spin-0 diquark condensate. (i) The relativistic spin-1 gap Delta' implies spontaneous breakdown of rotation invariance manifested in the form of the quasi-fermion dispersion law. (ii) The critical temperature of the anisotropic component is approximately given by the relation T_c'~ Delta'(T=0)/3. (iii) For massless fermions the gas of anisotropic Bogolyubov-Valatin quasiquarks becomes effectively gapless and two-dimensional. Consequently, its specific heat depends quadratically on temperature. (iv) All collective Nambu-Goldstone excitations of the anisotropic phase have a linear dispersion law and the whole system remains a superfluid. (v) The system exhibits an electromagnetic Meissner effect.Comment: v2: references added, angular dependence of the gap clarified, v3: extended discussion, typo in eq. (5) corrected, version accepted for publication in PR

Possibility of spontaneous parity violation in hot QCD

We suggest that for QCD in the limit of a large number of colors, N, the axial U(1) symmetry of massless quarks is effectively restored at the deconfining=chiral phase transition. If the deconfining transition is of second order, then the chiral transition is weakly first order. In this case, metastable states in which parity is spontaneously broken appear at temperatures below the phase transition. The production of these metastable states would have dramatic signatures, including enhanced production of eta and eta' mesons, which can decay through parity violating decay processes such as eta -> pi^0 pi^0, and global parity odd asymmetries for charged pions. Using a nonlinear sigma model, in QCD these metastable states only appear rather near the phase transition.Comment: 4 pages, REVTe

Thermal fluctuations of gauge fields and first order phase transitions in color superconductivity

We study the effects of thermal fluctuations of gluons and the diquark pairing field on the superconducting-to-normal state phase transition in a three-flavor color superconductor, using the Ginzburg-Landau free energy. At high baryon densities, where the system is a type I superconductor, gluonic fluctuations, which dominate over diquark fluctuations, induce a cubic term in the Ginzburg-Landau free energy, as well as large corrections to quadratic and quartic terms of the order parameter. The cubic term leads to a relatively strong first order transition, in contrast with the very weak first order transitions in metallic type I superconductors. The strength of the first order transition decreases with increasing baryon density. In addition gluonic fluctuations lower the critical temperature of the first order transition. We derive explicit formulas for the critical temperature and the discontinuity of the order parameter at the critical point. The validity of the first order transition obtained in the one-loop approximation is also examined by estimating the size of the critical region.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, final version published in Phys. Rev.

Lifetime Effects in Color Superconductivity at Weak Coupling

Present computations of the gap of color superconductivity in weak coupling assume that the quarks which participate in the condensation process are infinitely long-lived. However, the quasiparticles in a plasma are characterized by having a finite lifetime. In this article we take into account this fact to evaluate its effect in the computation of the color gap. By first considering the Schwinger-Dyson equations in weak coupling, when one-loop self-energy corrections are included, a general gap equation is written in terms of the spectral densities of the quasiparticles. To evaluate lifetime effects, we then model the spectral density by a Lorentzian function. We argue that the decay of the quasiparticles limits their efficiency to condense. The value of the gap at the Fermi surface is then reduced. To leading order, these lifetime effects can be taken into account by replacing the coupling constant of the gap equation by a reduced effective one.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures; explanations on the role of the Meissner effect added; 2 references added; accepted for publication in PR

High temperature color conductivity at next-to-leading log order

The non-Abelian analog of electrical conductivity at high temperature has previously been known only at leading logarithmic order: that is, neglecting effects suppressed only by an inverse logarithm of the gauge coupling. We calculate the first sub-leading correction. This has immediate application to improving, to next-to-leading log order, both effective theories of non-perturbative color dynamics, and calculations of the hot electroweak baryon number violation rate.Comment: 47 pages, 6+2 figure