Chiral phase transition in the vector meson extended linear sigma model

In the framework of an SU(3) (axial)vector meson extended linear sigma model with additional constituent quarks and Polyakov loops, we investigate the effects of (axial)vector mesons on the chiral phase transition. The parameters of the Lagrangian are set at zero temperature and we use a hybrid approach where in the effective potential the constituent quarks are treated at one-loop level and all the mesons at tree-level. We have four order parameters, two scalar condensates and two Polyakov loop variables and their temperature and baryochemical potential dependence are determined from the corresponding field equations. We also investigate the changes of the tree-level scalar meson masses in the hot and dense medium.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Phase statistics of the WMAP 7 year data

We performed a comprehensive statistical analysis using complex phases of the a_lm coefficients computed from the most recent data of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). Our aim was to confirm or constrain the presence of non-Gaussianities in the data. We found phase correlations - that suggest non-Gaussianity - at high-l in a_lm coefficients by applying various statistical tests. Most of all, we detected a non-Gaussian signal reaching a significance of 4.7 sigma using random walk statistics and simulations. However, our conclusion is that the non-Gaussian behavior is due to contamination from galactic foregrounds that show up in small scales only. When masked out the contaminated regions, we found no significant non-Gaussianity. Furthermore, we constrained the f_NL parameter using CMB simulations that mimic primordial non-Gaussianity. Our estimate is f_NL=40 +/- 200, in agreement with previous measurements and inflationary expectations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for Publication in A

Existence of the critical endpoint in the vector meson extended linear sigma model

The chiral phase transition of the strongly interacting matter is investigated at nonzero temperature and baryon chemical potential mu_B within an extended (2+1) flavor Polyakov constituent quark-meson model which incorporates the effect of the vector and axial vector mesons. The effect of the fermionic vacuum and thermal fluctuations computed from the grand potential of the model is taken into account in the curvature masses of the scalar and pseudoscalar mesons. The parameters of the model are determined by comparing masses and tree-level decay widths with experimental values in a chi^2-minimization procedure which selects between various possible assignments of scalar nonet states to physical particles. We examine the restoration of the chiral symmetry by monitoring the temperature evolution of condensates and the chiral partners' masses and of the mixing angles for the pseudoscalar eta-eta' and the corresponding scalar complex. We calculate the pressure and various thermodynamical observables derived from it and compare them to the continuum extrapolated lattice results of the Wuppertal-Budapest collaboration. We study the T-mu_B phase diagram of the model and find that a critical end point exists for parameters of the model, which give acceptable values of chi^2.Comment: 21 pages, 8 color eps figures, published versio

Monopoles and instantons in SU(2) lattice gauge theory

We investigate the monopole-instanton correlation in SU(2) lattice gauge theory using a renormalisation group inspired smoothing technique. We look at the properties of monopole clusters and their correlation with instantons. Since the action of the smoothed configurations is dominated by instantons we compare the smoothed Monte Carlo lattices to artificially reconstructed configurations with the same instanton content but no other fluctuations. Both parallel and randomly rotated (in group space) instanton ensembles are considered.Comment: LATTICE98(confine