Inhomogeneous phases of strongly interacting matter

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for inhomogeneous phases in strongly interacting matter, specifically in color superconducting quark matter and during chiral phase transitions, revealing complex phase structures.

Contribution

It introduces the possibility of soliton lattice formations in inhomogeneous phases of QCD matter using an NJL-type model, showing a new phase structure replacing the first-order transition line.

Findings

Inhomogeneous phases can form as soliton lattices in dense quark matter.

Inhomogeneous phases replace the first-order transition line in the phase diagram.

The phase diagram features two second-order transition lines bordering the inhomogeneous phase.

Abstract

We discuss possible inhomogeneous phases in two regions of the QCD phase diagram: We begin with color superconducting quark matter at moderately high densities, which is an imbalanced Fermi system due to the finite strange quark mass and neutrality constraints. Within an NJL-type toy model we find that this situation could lead to the formation of a soliton lattice. Similar solutions also exist in the context of the chiral phase transition. As an interesting result, the first-order transition line in the phase diagram of homogeneous phases gets replaced by an inhomogeneous phase which is bordered by two second-order transition lines.