Meissner masses in the gCFL phase of QCD

We calculate the Meissner masses of gluons in neutral three-flavor color superconducting matter for finite strange quark mass. In the CFL phase the eissner masses are slowly varying function of the strange quark mass. For large strange quark mass, in the so called gCFL phase, the Meissner masses of gluons with colors $a=1,2,3$ and 8 become imaginary, indicating an instability.Comment: New Fig. 1 shows that also the masses of the gluons 3 and 8 are imaginar

Critical Endpoint and Inverse Magnetic Catalysis for Finite Temperature and Density Quark Matter in a Magnetic Background

In this article we study chiral symmetry breaking for quark matter in a magnetic background, $\bm B$, at finite temperature and quark chemical potential, $\mu$, making use of the Ginzburg-Landau effective action formalism. As a microscopic model to compute the effective action we use the renormalized quark-meson model. Our main goal is to study the evolution of the critical endpoint, ${\cal CP}$, as a function of the magnetic field strength, and investigate on the realization of inverse magnetic catalysis at finite chemical potential. We find that the phase transition at zero chemical potential is always of the second order; for small and intermediate values of $\bm B$, ${\cal CP}$ moves towards small $\mu$, while for larger $\bm B$ it moves towards moderately larger values of $\mu$. Our results are in agreement with the inverse magnetic catalysis scenario at finite chemical potential and not too large values of the magnetic field, while at larger $\bm B$ direct magnetic catalysis sets in.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Enforced neutrality and color-flavor unlocking in the three-flavor Polyakov-loop NJL model

We study how the charge neutrality affects the phase structure of three-flavor PNJL model. We point out that, within the conventional PNJL model at finite density the color neutrality is missing because the Wilson line serves as an external ``colored'' field coupled to dynamical quarks. In this paper we heuristically assume that the model may still be applicable. To get color neutrality one has then to allow non vanishing color chemical potentials. We study how the quark matter phase diagram in $(T,m_s^2/\mu)$-plane is affected by imposing neutrality and by including the Polyakov loop dynamics. Although these two effects are correlated in a nonlinear way, the impact of the Polyakov loop turns out to be significant in the $T$ direction, while imposing neutrality brings a remarkable effect in the $m_s^2/\mu$ direction. In particular, we find a novel unlocking transition, when the temperature is increased, even in the chiral SU(3) limit. We clarify how and why this is possible once the dynamics of the colored Polyakov loop is taken into account. Also we succeed in giving an analytic expression for $T_c$ for the transition from two-flavor pairing (2SC) to unpaired quark matter in the presence of the Polyakov loop.Comment: 11 pages, REVTex4, 10 eps figures; v2: added two notes, added a reference; version to appear in Phys. Rev.

A clinical review on megalencephaly: A large brain as a possible sign of cerebral impairment.

Megalencephaly and macrocephaly present with a head circumference measurement 2 standard deviations above the age-related mean. However, even if pathologic events resulting in both megalencephaly and macrocephaly may coexist, a distinction between these two entities is appropriate, as they represent clinical expression of different disorders with a different approach in clinical work-up, overall prognosis, and treatment. Megalencephaly defines an increased growth of cerebral structures related to dysfunctional anomalies during the various steps of brain development in the neuronal proliferation and/or migration phases or as a consequence of postnatal abnormal events. The disorders associated with megalencephaly are classically defined into 3 groups: idiopathic or benign, metabolic, and anatomic. In this article, we seek to underline the clinical aspect of megalencephaly, emphasizing the main disorders that manifest with this anomaly in an attempt to properly categorize these disorders within the megalencephaly group

Congenital muscular dystrophy: from muscle to brain.

Congenital muscular dystrophies (CMDs) are a wide group of muscular disorders that manifest with very early onset of muscular weakness, sometime associated to severe brain involvement.The histologic pattern of muscle anomalies is typical of dystrophic lesions but quite variable depending on the different stages and on the severity of the disorder.Recent classification of CMDs have been reported most of which based on the combination of clinical, biochemical, molecular and genetic findings, but genotype/phenotype correlation are in constant progression due to more diffuse utilization of the molecular analysis.In this article, the Authors report on CMDs belonging to the group of dystroglycanopathies and in particular on the most severe forms represented by the Fukuyama CMD, Muscle-Eye-Brain disease and Walker Walburg syndrome.Clinical diagnosis of infantile hypotonia is particularly difficult considering the different etiologic factors causing the lesions, the difficulty in localizing the involved CNS area (central vs. peripheral) and the limited role of the diagnostic procedures at this early age.The diagnostic evaluation is not easy mainly in differentiating the various types of CMDs, and represents a challenge for the neonatologists and pediatricians. Suggestions are reported on the way to reach a correct diagnosis with the appropriate use of the diagnostic means

On the ground state of gapless two flavor color superconductors

This paper is devoted to the study of some aspects of the instability of two flavor color superconductive quark matter. We find that, beside color condensates, the Goldstone boson related to the breaking of $U(1)_A$ suffers of a velocity instability. We relate this wrong sign problem, which implies the existence of a Goldstone current in the ground state or of gluonic condensation, to the negative squared Meissner mass of the $8^{th}$ gluon in the g2SC phase. Moreover we investigate the Meissner masses of the gluons and the squared velocity of the Goldstone in the multiple plane wave LOFF states, arguing that in such phases both the chromo-magnetic instability and the velocity instability are most probably removed. We also do not expect Higgs instability in such multiple plane wave LOFF. The true vacuum of gapless two flavor superconductors is thus expected to be a multiple plane wave LOFF state.Comment: 16 pages, RevTe3X4 styl