Small shear viscosity in the semi quark gluon plasma

At nonzero temperature in QCD, about the deconfining phase transition there is a "semi" quark gluon plasma (semi-QGP), where the expectation value of the (renormalized) Polyakov loop is less than one. This can be modeled by a semiclassical expansion about a constant field for the vector potential, A_0, which is diagonal in color. We compute the shear viscosity in the semi-QGP by using the Boltzmann equation in the presence of this background field. To leading, logarithmic order in weak coupling, the dominant diagrams are given by the usual scattering processes of 2 -> 2 particles. For simplicity we also assume that both the number of colors and flavors are large. Near the critical temperature T_c, where the expectation value of the Polyakov loop is small, the overall density of colored fields decreases according to their color representation, with the density of quarks vanishes linearly with the loop, and that of gluons, quadratically. This decrease in the overall density dominates changes in the transport cross section. As a result, relative to that in the perturbative QGP, near T_c the shear viscosity in the semi-QGP is suppressed by two powers of the Polyakov loop. In a semiclassical expansion, the suppression of colored fields depends only upon which color representation they lie in, and not upon their mass. That light and heavy quarks are suppressed in a common manner may help to explain the behavior of charm quarks at RHIC.Comment: 45 pages, 8 figures, REVTeX; Abstract and Sec. III.A modified to clarify the physical discussion

Zero Point Energy of Renormalized Wilson Loops

The quark antiquark potential, and its associated zero point energy, can be extracted from lattice measurements of the Wilson loop. We discuss a unique prescription to renormalize the Wilson loop, for which the perturbative contribution to the zero point energy vanishes identically. A zero point energy can arise nonperturbatively, which we illustrate by considering effective string models. The nonperturbative contribution to the zero point energy vanishes in the Nambu model, but is nonzero when terms for extrinsic curvature are included. At one loop order, the nonperturbative contribution to the zero point energy is negative, regardless of the sign of the extrinsic curvature term.Comment: 14 pages, ReVTeX. Paper shortened, results unchange

Dilepton and photon production in the presence of a nontrivial Polyakov loop

We calculate the production of dileptons and photons in the presence of a nontrivial Polyakov loop in QCD. This is applicable to the semi-Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), at temperatures above but near the critical temperature for deconfinement. The Polyakov loop is small in the semi-QGP, and near unity in the perturbative QGP. Working to leading order in the coupling constant of QCD, we find that there is a mild enhancement, ~ 20%, for dilepton production in the semi-QGP over that in the perturbative QGP. In contrast, we find that photon production is strongly suppressed in the semi-QGP, by about an order of magnitude, relative to the perturbative QGP. In the perturbative QGP photon production contains contributions from 2->2 scattering and collinear emission with the Landau- Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM) effect. In the semi-QGP we show that the two contributions are modified differently. The rate for 2->2 scattering is suppressed by a factor which depends upon the Polyakov loop. In contrast, in an SU(N) gauge theory the collinear rate is suppressed by 1/N, so that the LPM effect vanishes at infinite N. To leading order in the semi-QGP at large N, we compute the rate from 2->2 scattering to the leading logarithmic order and the collinear rate to leading order

Alpha-cluster structure and density wave in oblate nuclei

Pentagon and triangle shapes in Si-28 and C-12 are discussed in relation with nuclear density wave. In the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics calculations, the $K^\pi=5^-$ band in Si-28 and the $K^\pi=3^-$ band in C-12 are described by the pentagon and triangle shapes, respectively. These negative-parity bands can be interpreted as the parity partners of the $K^\pi=0^+$ ground bands and they are constructed from the parity-asymmetric-intrinsic states. The pentagon and the triangle shapes originate in 7alpha and 3alpha cluster structures, respectively. In a mean-field picture, they are described also by the static one-dimensional density wave at the edge of the oblate states. In analysis with ideal alpha cluster models using Brink-Bloch cluster wave functions and that with a simplified model, we show that the static edge density wave for the pentagon and triangle shapes can be understood by spontaneous breaking of axial symmetry, i.e., the instability of the oblate states with respect to the edge density wave. The density wave is enhanced in the Z=N nuclei due to the proton-neutron coherent density waves, while it is suppressed in Z\ne N nuclei.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure

How Wide is the Transition to Deconfinement?

Pure SU(3) glue theories exhibit a deconfining phase transition at a nonzero temperature, Tc. Using lattice measurements of the pressure, we develop a simple matrix model to describe the transition region, when T > Tc. This model, which involves three parameters, is used to compute the behavior of the 't Hooft loop. There is a Higgs phase in this region, where off diagonal color modes are heavy, and diagonal modes are light. Lattice measurements of the latter suggests that the transition region is narrow, extending only to about 1.2 Tc. This is in stark contrast to lattice measurements of the renormalized Polyakov loop, which indicates a much wider width. The possible implications for the differences in heavy ion collisions between RHIC and the LHC are discussed.Comment: v2: Minor changes in wording, references adde

Active Brownian Motion in Threshold Distribution of a Coulomb Blockade Model

Randomly-distributed offset charges affect the nonlinear current-voltage property via the fluctuation of the threshold voltage of Coulomb blockade arrays. We analytically derive the distribution of the threshold voltage for a model of one-dimensional locally-coupled Coulomb blockade arrays, and propose a general relationship between conductance and the distribution. In addition, we show the distribution for a long array is equivalent to the distribution of the number of upward steps for aligned objects of different height. The distribution satisfies a novel Fokker-Planck equation corresponding to active Brownian motion. The feature of the distribution is clarified by comparing it with the Wigner and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. It is not restricted to the Coulomb blockade model, but instructive in statistical physics generally.Comment: 4pages, 3figure