Coexistence of color superconductivity and chiral symmetry breaking within the NJL model

The phase diagram for quark matter is investigated within a simple Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model without vector correlations. It is found that the phase structure in the temperature-density plane depends sensitively on the parametrization of the model. We present two schemes of parametrization of the model where within the first one a first order phase transition from a phase with broken chiral symmetry to a color superconducting phase for temperatures below the triple point at T_t= 55 MeV occurs whereas for the second one a second order phase transition for temperatures below T_t = 7 MeV is found. In the latter case, there is also a coexistence phase of broken chiral symmetry with color superconductivity, which is a new finding within this class of models. Possible consequences for the phenomenology of the QCD phase transition at high baryon densities are discussed.Comment: LaTeX, 23 pages, 7 figures, new references and discussion added, typos correcte

Chiral quark model with infrared cut-off for the description of meson properties in hot matter

A simple chiral quark model of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) type with a quark confinement mechanism is constructed for the description of the light meson sector of QCD at finite temperature. Unphysical quark production thresholds in the NJL model are excluded by an infrared cut-off in the momentum integration within quark loop diagrams. This chiral quark model satisfies the low energy theorems. Using the vacuum masses and decay widths of \pi- and \rho-mesons for fixing the model parameters, the properties of the \sigma- meson are derived. Within the Matsubara formalism, the model is systematically extended to finite temperatures where chiral symmetry restoration due to a dropping constituent quark mass entails a vanishing of the infrared cut-off (deconfinement) at the pion Mott temperature T_c=186 MeV. Besides of the pion mass and weak decay constant, the masses, coupling constants and decay widths of \sigma- and \rho-mesons in hot matter are investigated. The quark-antiquark decay channel of the light mesons is opened for T>T_c only and becomes particularly strong for the \rho- meson. The two-pion decay channel below T_c has almost constant width for the \rho- meson up to T_c, but for the \sigma-meson it closes below T_c such that a scalar meson state with vanishing width is obtained as a precursor of the chiral/deconfinement transition.Comment: Latex file, 23 pages, 7 figure

Ground and excited scalar isoscalar meson states in a U(3)xU(3) quark model with a glueball

Ground and first radially excited scalar isoscalar meson states and a scalar glueball are described in a nonlocal U(3)xU(3) quark model. The glueball is introduced into the effective meson Lagrangian by means of the dilaton model on the base of the scale invariance of the meson Lagrangian. The scale invariance breaking by current quark masses and gluon anomalies is taken into account. The glueball anomalies turn out to be important for the description of the glueball-quarkonia mixing. The masses of five scalar isoscalar meson states and their strong decay widths are calculated. The state f_0(1500) is shown to be composed mostly of the scalar glueball