Dense QCD: a Holographic Dyonic Salt

TL;DR

This paper explores the structure of dense QCD using holographic duality, revealing a transition from instanton crystals to dyonic salt-like arrangements and then to half-instanton bcc crystals at high densities.

Contribution

It introduces a holographic model of dense QCD crystals, showing a transition from instantons to dyons and then to half-instantons, providing new insights into the phase structure.

Findings

Transition density around 3 times nuclear matter density.

Dyon binding energy estimated at about 180 MeV.

Crystal structure changes from fcc instantons to bcc half-instantons.

Abstract

Dense QCD at zero temperature with a large number of colors is a crystal. We show that in the holographic dual description, the crystal is made out of pairs of dyons with $e=g=\pm 1$ charges in a salt-like arrangement. We argue that with increasing density the dyon masses and topological charges equalize, turning the salt-like configuration to a bcc of half-instantons. The latter is dual to a cubic crystal of half-skyrmions. We estimate the transition from an fcc crystal of instantons to a bcc crystal of dyons to about 3 times nuclear matter density with a dyon binding energy of about 180 MeV.