Color Screening by Pions

TL;DR

This study uses lattice QCD to investigate how a pion condensate influences the potential between a static quark-antiquark pair, revealing significant modifications at short distances consistent with a nonlinear chromo-dielectric behavior.

Contribution

The paper introduces a lattice QCD approach to quantify the impact of a pion condensate on the Qar{Q} potential, highlighting its nonlinear dielectric properties.

Findings

Potential modifications depend strongly on quark-antiquark separation.

Results suggest the pion condensate acts as a nonlinear chromo-dielectric.

Significant effects observed at separations less than 1 fm.

Abstract

Lattice QCD is used to calculate the potential between a static quark and anti-quark in the presence of a finite density of pi^+'s. Correlation functions of multiple pi^+'s are used in conjunction with Wilson-loop correlators to determine the difference between the Q\overline{Q}-potential in free-space and in the presence of a pion condensate. The modifications to the potential are found to have significant dependence on the Q\overline{Q} separation over the range r < 1 fm explored in this work. Our results are consistent with the pion-condensate behaving as a (nonlinear) chromo-dielectric.