Gluons, quarks and deconfinement at high density

TL;DR

This paper investigates gluon and quark propagators in 2-color QCD at high baryon density, revealing antiscreening in the confined phase, screening in the deconfined phase, and significant modifications in quark behavior due to superfluid gap formation.

Contribution

It provides the first analysis of electric and magnetic gluon masses at high density and details the dramatic changes in quark propagators in the superfluid phase.

Findings

Gluon propagator is antiscreened in the confined phase and screened in the deconfined phase.

Quark propagator shows zero crossings and suppression in the superfluid region.

First determination of gluon masses at high baryon density.

Abstract

We compute gluon and quark propagators in 2-colour QCD at large baryon chemical potential mu. The gluon propagator is found to be antiscreened in the superfluid, confined phase and screened in the large-mu, deconfined phase. We present the first attempt to determine corresponding electric and magnetic gluon masses. The quark propagator undergoes dramatic modifications in the superfluid region as a result of the formation of a superfluid gap. These modifications include the appearance of zero crossings in the vector part of the (normal) quark propagator, a large suppression of the scalar part, and the emergence of anomalous propagation.