Possible splitting of deconfinement and chiral transitions in strong magnetic fields in QCD

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in strong magnetic fields, the deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration transitions in QCD can occur separately, leading to a new phase with unique properties.

Contribution

It reveals that strong magnetic fields can cause a splitting of QCD phase transitions and introduces a new deconfined phase with broken chiral symmetry.

Findings

Deconfinement and chiral transitions can split under strong magnetic fields.

The critical temperature difference is approximately 10 MeV at LHC-scale fields.

A new phase with deconfinement and broken chiral symmetry emerges.

Abstract

We show that finite-temperature deconfinement and chiral transitions can split in a strong enough magnetic field. The splitting in critical temperatures of these transitions in a constant magnetic field of a typical LHC magnitude is of the order of 10 MeV. A new deconfined phase with broken chiral symmetry appears.