Domain walls of high-density QCD

We show that in very dense quark matter there must exist metastable domain walls where the axial U(1) phase of the color-superconducting condensate changes by 2pi. The decay rate of the domain walls is exponentially suppressed and we compute it semiclassically. We give an estimate of the critical chemical potential above which our analysis is under theoretical control.Comment: 4 pages; Eq. (16) corrected, 2 new references added, published versio

Notes on chiral hydrodynamics within effective theory approach

We address the issue of evaluating chiral effects (such as the newly discovered chiral separation) in hydrodynamic approximation. The main tool we use is effective theory which defines interaction in terms of chemical potentials $\mu,\mu_5$. In the lowest order in $\mu,\mu_5$ we reproduce recent results based on thermodynamic considerations. In higher orders the results depend on details of infrared cutoff. Another point of our interest is an alternative way of the anomaly matching through introduction of effective scalar fields arising in the hydrodynamic approximation

Universal Properties of Two-Dimensional Boson Droplets

We consider a system of N nonrelativistic bosons in two dimensions, interacting weakly via a short-range attractive potential. We show that for N large, but below some critical value, the properties of the N-boson bound state are universal. In particular, the ratio of the binding energies of (N+1)- and N-boson systems, B_{N+1}/B_N, approaches a finite limit, approximately 8.567, at large N. We also confirm previous results that the three-body system has exactly two bound states. We find for the ground state B_3^(0) = 16.522688(1) B_2 and for the excited state B_3^(1) = 1.2704091(1) B_2.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, final versio

Chiral Vortical Effect in Superfluid

We consider rotating superfluid pionic liquid, with superfluidity being induced by isospin chemical potential. The rotation is known to result in a chiral current flowing along the axis of the rotation. We argue that in case of superfluidity the chiral current is realized on fermionic zero modes propagating along vortices. The current evaluated in this way differs by a factor of two from the standard one. The reason is that the chiral charge is carried by zero modes which propagate with speed of light, and thus the liquid cannot be described by a single (local) velocity, like it is assumed in standard derivations.Comment: 10 pages. To be published in PRD. Minor changes added; typos fixe

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking with Abnormal Number of Nambu-Goldstone Bosons and Kaon Condensate

We describe a class of relativistic models incorporating finite density of matter in which spontaneous breakdown of continuous symmetries leads to a lesser number of Nambu-Goldstone bosons than that required by the Goldstone theorem. This class, in particular, describes the dynamics of the kaon condensate in the color-flavor locked phase of high density QCD. We describe the spectrum of low energy excitations in this dynamics and show that, despite the presence of a condensate and gapless excitations, this system is not a superfluid.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, REVTeX. Minor revisions made and 2 new references added. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Real-time pion propagation in finite-temperature QCD

We argue that in QCD near the chiral limit, at all temperatures below the chiral phase transition, the dispersion relation of soft pions can be expressed entirely in terms of three temperature-dependent quantities: the pion screening mass, a pion decay constant, and the axial isospin susceptibility. The definitions of these quantities are given in terms of equal-time (static) correlation functions. Thus, all three quantities can be determined directly by lattice methods. The precise meaning of the Gell-Mann--Oakes--Renner relation at finite temperature is given.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures; v2: discussion on the region of applicability expanded, to be published in PR

Swinging of red blood cells under shear flow

We reveal that under moderate shear stress (of the order of 0.1 Pa) red blood cells present an oscillation of their inclination (swinging) superimposed to the long-observed steady tanktreading (TT) motion. A model based on a fluid ellipsoid surrounded by a visco-elastic membrane initially unstrained (shape memory) predicts all observed features of the motion: an increase of both swinging amplitude and period (1/2 the TT period) upon decreasing the shear stress, a shear stress-triggered transition towards a narrow shear stress-range intermittent regime of successive swinging and tumbling, and a pure tumbling motion at lower shear stress-values.Comment: 4 pages 5 figures submitted to Physical Review Letter