14 research outputs found
Chiral perturbation theory in a magnetic background - finite-temperature effects
We consider chiral perturbation theory for SU(2) at finite temperature in
a constant magnetic background . We compute the thermal mass of the pions
and the pion decay constant to leading order in chiral perturbation theory in
the presence of the magnetic field. The magnetic field gives rise to a
splitting between and as well as between
and . We also calculate the free energy and the
quark condensate to next-to-leading order in chiral perturbation theory. Both
the pion decay constants and the quark condensate are decreasing slower as a
function of temperature as compared to the case with vanishing magnetic field.
The latter result suggests that the critical temperature for the chiral
transition is larger in the presence of a constant magnetic field. The increase
of as a function of is in agreement with most model calculations but
in disagreement with recent lattice calculations.Comment: 24 pages and 9 fig
Non-equilibrium physics at a holographic chiral phase transition
The D3/D7 system holographically describes an N = 2=2 gauge theory which spontaneously breaks a chiral symmetry by the formation of a quark condensate in the presence of a magnetic field. At finite temperature it displays a first order phase transition. We study out of equilibrium dynamics associated with this transition by placing probe D7 branes in a geometry describing a boost-invariant expanding or contracting plasma. We use an adiabatic approximation to track the evolution of the quark condensate in a heated system and reproduce the phase structure expected from equilibrium dynamics. We then study solutions of the full partial differential equation that describes the evolution of out of equilibrium configurations to provide a complete description of the phase transition including describing aspects of bubble formation