Meta-stable States in Quark-Gluon Plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates the existence of meta-stable states in high-temperature QCD, identifying the conditions and temperature thresholds at which these states appear using lattice simulations with dynamical quarks.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed lattice simulation analysis of meta-stable states in high-temperature QCD with dynamical quarks, pinpointing the coupling and temperature where they emerge.

Findings

Meta-stable states appear above a specific coupling $eta_m$

The critical temperature for $N_f=2$ is approximately 750 MeV

Simulations with $N_f=2, 3$ dynamical quarks confirm the presence of these states

Abstract

We study the meta-stable states in high temperature phase of QCD characterised by nonzero expectation values for the imaginary part of the Polyakov loop. We consider $N_f= 2, 3$ dynamical staggered quarks, and carry out simulations at various values of the coupling $\beta$ to observe these states. In particular, we find the value of the coupling ($\beta_m$) above which the meta-stable states appear. The resulting value of $\beta_m$ corresponds to temperature $T_m \gtrsim 750$MeV for $N_f=2$.