Finite Temperature Large N Gauge Theory with Quarks in an External Magnetic Field

TL;DR

This paper investigates the effects of finite temperature and external magnetic fields on large N SU(N) gauge theories with quarks using a ten-dimensional string dual, revealing phase transitions, chiral symmetry breaking, and meson behavior.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the phase structure and thermodynamics of large N gauge theories with quarks under magnetic fields at finite temperature using holographic duality.

Findings

Chiral symmetry breaking occurs at a critical magnetic field.

Meson melting transition disappears above the critical field.

Thermodynamic properties of the plasma are computed.

Abstract

Using a ten dimensional dual string background, we study aspects of the physics of finite temperature large N four dimensional SU(N) gauge theory, focusing on the dynamics of fundamental quarks in the presence of a background magnetic field. At vanishing temperature and magnetic field, the theory has N=2 supersymmetry, and the quarks are in hypermultiplet representations. In a previous study, similar techniques were used to show that the quark dynamics exhibit spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. In the present work we begin by establishing the non-trivial phase structure that results from finite temperature. We observe, for example, that above the critical value of the field that generates a chiral condensate spontaneously, the meson melting transition disappears, leaving only a discrete spectrum of mesons at any temperature. We also compute several thermodynamic properties of the plasma.