Towards a Holographic Model of the QCD Phase Diagram

TL;DR

This paper explores holographic models of strongly coupled gauge theories to understand their phase diagrams, demonstrating that such models can replicate key features of QCD's phase transitions influenced by temperature and density.

Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological holographic model with a running coupling to simulate QCD-like phase transitions, showing the potential of holography to mimic QCD phenomena.

Findings

Holographic models can produce first and second order chiral phase transitions.

The phase diagrams depend on the dilaton profile, modeling different QCD scenarios.

Holography captures key qualitative features of the QCD phase diagram.

Abstract

We describe the temperature-chemical potential phase diagrams of holographic models of a range of strongly coupled gauge theories that display chiral symmetry breaking/restoration transitions. The models are based on the D3/probe-D7 system but with a phenomenologically chosen running coupling/dilaton profile. We realize chiral phase transitions with either temperature or density that are first or second order by changing the dilaton profile. Although the models are only caricatures of QCD they show that holographic models can capture many aspects of the QCD phase diagram and hint at the dependence on the running coupling.