How many phases meet at the chiral critical point?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the phase diagram of NJL-type models near the chiral critical point, highlighting the potential dominance of inhomogeneous phases and their possible relevance to QCD's phase structure.

Contribution

It demonstrates that inhomogeneous chiral condensate phases extend to the chiral critical point in NJL models, suggesting their importance in understanding QCD phase transitions.

Findings

Inhomogeneous phases are energetically favored near the chiral critical point.

The preferred inhomogeneous ground state may resemble a lattice of domain wall solitons.

These phases could be relevant for the QCD phase diagram.

Abstract

We explore the phase diagram of NJL-type models near the chiral critical point allowing for phases with spatially inhomogeneous chiral condensates. In the chiral limit it turns out that the region in the mean-field phase diagram where those phases are energetically preferred very generically reaches out to the chiral critical point. The preferred inhomogeneous ground state in this vicinity possibly resembles a lattice of domain wall solitons. This raises the question of their relevance for the phase diagram of QCD.