Two Color Matter in the Quenched Approximation

TL;DR

This paper investigates quenched SU(2) lattice gauge theory with a novel approach to gauge ensemble generation, finding no evidence of quark deconfinement or Fermi surface behavior under various parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a method to generate gauge ensembles from a 3d gauge-Higgs model and studies its implications for quark propagation at non-zero chemical potential.

Findings

Inter-quark interaction strength can be tuned via model parameters.

No evidence of quark deconfinement in the explored parameter space.

Thermodynamic observables do not scale as if a Fermi surface exists.

Abstract

We study a quenched SU(2) lattice gauge theory in 4d in which the spatial gauge ensemble $\{U_i\}$ is generated from a 3d gauge-Higgs model and the timelike link variables are ``reconstructed'' from the Higgs fields. The resulting ensemble is used to study quenched quark propagation with non-zero chemical potential $\mu$. While it proves possible to alter the strength of the inter-quark interaction by changing the parameters of the dimensionally reduced model, there is no evidence for any region of parameter space where quarks exhibit deconfined behaviour or thermodynamic observables scale as if there were a Fermi surface.