Dressed Polyakov loop and flavor dependent phase transitions

TL;DR

This paper investigates flavor-dependent phase transitions in QCD using the NJL model, revealing sequential transitions for different quark flavors and their dependence on baryon density.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of flavor-dependent chiral and deconfinement transitions using the dressed Polyakov loop within the NJL model framework.

Findings

Sequential flavor transitions become more separated with increasing baryon density.

Pseudo-critical temperatures for chiral and Polyakov loop transitions differ at low density.

Transitions for different flavors coincide at high baryon density.

Abstract

The chiral condensate and dressed Polyakov loop at finite temperature and density have been investigated in the framework of Nf = 2+1 Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model with two degenerate u, d quarks and one strange quark. In the case of explicit chiral symmetry breaking with physical quark masses, it is found that the phase transitions for light u, d quarks and s quark are sequentially happened, and the separation between the transition lines for different flavors becomes wider and wider with the increase of baryon density. For each flavor, the pseudo-critical temperatures for chiral condensate and dressed Polyakov loop differ in a narrow transition range in the lower baryon density region, and the two transitions coincide in the higher baryon density region.