Chiral symmetry breaking in cascading gauge theory plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates the phase transitions and instabilities in a supersymmetric cascading gauge theory plasma, revealing a new chiral symmetry breaking transition slightly above the deconfinement temperature.

Contribution

It identifies the temperature at which the cascading plasma becomes unstable to chiral symmetry breaking, providing detailed numerical results and insights into the phase structure.

Findings

Deconfinement phase transition at T_c=0.6141 Lambda

Deconfined phase remains stable down to T_u=0.8749 T_c

Chiral symmetry breaking occurs at T_cSB=0.8825 T_c, above T_u

Abstract

N=1 supersymmetric SU(K+P)xSU(K) cascading gauge theory of Klebanov et.al [1,2] undergoes a first-order finite temperature confinement/deconfinement phase transition at T_c=0.6141111(3) Lambda, where Lambda is the strong coupling scale of the theory. The deconfined phase of the theory, with the unbroken chiral symmetry, extends down to T_u=0.8749(0) T_c, where it becomes perturbatively unstable due to the condensation of the hydrodynamic (sound) modes. We show that at T_cSB =0.882503(0) T_c > T_u the deconfined phase of the cascading plasma is perturbatively unstable towards development of the chiral symmetry breaking condensates. We present evidence that the ground state of the cascading plasma for T<T_cSB can not be homogeneous and isotropic.