Phase diagram and nucleation in the Polyakov-loop-extended Quark-Meson truncation of QCD with the unquenched Polyakov-loop potential

Unquenching of the Polyakov-loop potential showed to be an important improvement for the description of the phase structure and thermodynamics of strongly-interacting matter at zero quark chemical potentials with Polyakov-loop extended chiral models. This work constitutes the first application of the quark backreaction on the Polyakov-loop potential at nonzero density. The observation is that it links the chiral and deconfinement phase transition also at small temperatures and large quark chemical potentials. The build up of the surface tension in the Polyakov-loop extended Quark-Meson model is explored by investigating the two and 2+1-flavour Quark-Meson model and analysing the impact of the Polyakov-loop extension. In general, the order of magnitude of the surface tension is given by the chiral phase transition. The coupling of the chiral and deconfinement transition with the unquenched Polyakov-loop potential leads to the fact that the Polyakov-loop contributes at all temperatures.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures; version published in Phys. Rev.

Thermodynamics of (2+1)-flavor strongly interacting matter at nonzero isospin

We investigate the phase structure of strongly interacting matter at non-vanishing isospin before the onset of pion condensation in the framework of the unquenched Polyakov-Quark-Meson model with 2+1 quark flavors. We show results for the order parameters and all relevant thermodynamic quantities. In particular, we obtain a moderate change of the pressure with isospin at vanishing baryon chemical potential, whereas the chiral condensate decreases more appreciably. We compare the effective model to recent lattice data for the decrease of the pseudo-critical temperature with the isospin chemical potential. We also demonstrate the major role played by the value of the pion mass in the curvature of the transition line, and the need for lattice results with a physical pion mass. Limitations of the model at nonzero chemical potential are also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; version published in Phys. Lett.

On the Thermodynamics and Phase Structure of Strongly-Interacting Matter in a Polyakov-loop–extended Constituent-Quark Model

Polyakov-loop–extended constituent-quark models are useful to investigate the chiral and (de)confinement phase structure and the thermodynamics of strongly-interacting matter. It is shown that taking into account the quark backreaction on the gauge-field dynamics as well as quantum and thermal fluctuations of quarks and mesons is crucial in such models to achieve results for order parameters and thermodynamics that are in line with non-perturbative calculations at vanishing chemical potential. The dependence of the results on remaining parameters is discussed. The investigations are extended to nonzero quark density and isospin. The impact of unquenching effects in the Polyakov-loop potential on the phase structure at non-vanishing quark densities is discussed. Predictions for thermodynamics at nonzero isospin are shown. Furthermore, the reliability of those models is tested by confronting its results with lattice data on the isospin dependence of the transition temperature. The phase structure of the three-dimensional temperature - isospin - quark density phase diagram is investigated. Moreover, the process of nucleation at small temperatures and large densities is investigated and the surface tension for the phase transition calculated. Some consequences of the results for the early Universe, for heavy-ion collisions, and for proto-neutron stars are discussed

Cosmological implications of a Dark Matter self-interaction energy density

We investigate cosmological constraints on an energy density contribution of elastic dark matter self-interactions characterized by the mass of the exchange particle and coupling constant. Because of the expansion behaviour in a Robertson-Walker metric we investigate self-interacting dark matter that is warm in the case of thermal relics. The scaling behaviour of dark matter self-interaction energy density shows that it can be the dominant contribution (only) in the very early universe. Thus its impact on primordial nucleosynthesis is used to restrict the interaction strength, which we find to be at least as strong as the strong interaction. Furthermore we explore dark matter decoupling in a self-interaction dominated universe, which is done for the self-interacting warm dark matter as well as for collisionless cold dark matter in a two component scenario. We find that strong dark matter self-interactions do not contradict super-weak inelastic interactions between self-interacting dark matter and baryonic matter and that the natural scale of collisionless cold dark matter decoupling exceeds the weak scale and depends linearly on the particle mass. Finally structure formation analysis reveals a linear growing solution during self-interaction domination; however, only non-cosmological scales are enhanced.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures; version published in Phys. Rev.

Phase diagram and surface tension in the three-flavor Polyakov-quark-meson model

We obtain the in-medium effective potential of the three-flavor Polyakov-Quark-Meson model as a real function of real variables in the Polyakov loop variable, to allow for the study of all possible minima of the model. At finite quark chemical potential, the real and imaginary parts of the effective potential, in terms of the Polyakov loop variables, are made apparent, showing explicitly the fermion sign problem of the theory. The phase diagram and other equilibrium observables, obtained from the real part of the effective potential, are calculated in the mean-field approximation. The obtained results are compared to those found with the so-called saddle-point approach. Our procedure also allows the calculation of the surface tension between the chirally broken and confined phase, and the chirally restored and deconfined phase. The values of surface tension we find for low temperatures are very close to the ones recently found for two-flavor chiral models. Some consequences of our results for the early Universe, for heavy-ion collisions, and for proto-neutron stars are briefly discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures. V2: typos fixed, references adde

Thermodynamics of QCD at vanishing density

We study the phase structure of QCD at finite temperature within a Polyakov-loop enhanced quark-meson model. Such a model describes the chiral as well as the confinement-deconfinement dynamics. In the present investigation, based on the approach and results put forward in [1-4], both, matter as well as glue fluctuations are included. We present results for the order parameters as well as some thermodynamic observables and find very good agreement with recent results from lattice QCD.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures; published versio

Exploring the Phase Structure and Thermodynamics of QCD

We put forward a Polyakov-loop extended quark meson model, where matter as well as glue fluctuations are taken into account, cf. [1]. The latter are included via a Polyakov-loop potential. Usually such a glue potential is based on Yang-Mills lattice data only. We show that a parametrisation of unquenching effects as proposed in [2], together with the inclusion of fluctuations via the functional renormalisation group [3,4], accounts for the relevant dynamics. This is demonstrated by a comparison of order parameters and thermodynamic observables to recent lattice results at vanishing chemical potential, where we find very good agreement.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, contribution to "QCD-TNT-III: From quarks and gluons to hadronic matter: A bridge too far?", ECT*, Trento (Italy), September 2-6, 201

Improved Polyakov-loop potential for effective models from functional calculations

We investigate the quark backreaction on the Polyakov loop and its impact on the thermodynamics of quantum chromodynamics. The dynamics of the gluons generating the Polyakov-loop potential is altered by the presence of dynamical quarks. However, this backreaction of the quarks has not yet been taken into account in Polyakov-loop extended model studies. In the present work, we show within a 2+1 flavour Polyakov-quark-meson model that a quark-improved Polyakov-loop potential leads to a smoother transition between the low-temperature hadronic phase and the high-temperature quark-gluon plasma phase. In particular, we discuss the dependence of our results on the remaining uncertainties that are the critical temperature and the parametrisation of the Polyakov-loop potential as well as the mass of the sigma-meson.Comment: 19 pages, 25 figures; version published in Phys. Rev.