Inhomogeneous islands and continents in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model

TL;DR

This paper explores inhomogeneous chiral symmetry breaking phases in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, analyzing spatial modulations, effects of color number variations, and the emergence of an inhomogeneous continent at high chemical potentials.

Contribution

It introduces new insights into the structure and stability of inhomogeneous phases, including the inhomogeneous continent, within the NJL model.

Findings

Different spatial modulations have varying free energies.

The inhomogeneous region is affected by the number of colors.

An inhomogeneous continent appears at high chemical potentials.

Abstract

We present some recent developments in our study of inhomogeneous chiral symmetry breaking phases in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. First, we investigate different kinds of one- and two-dimensional spatial modulations of the chiral condensate within the inhomogeneous "island" and compare their free energies. Next, we employ the Polyakov-loop extended version of the model to study the effects of varying the number of colors on the inhomogeneous region. Finally, we discuss the properties of an inhomogeneous "continent" which appears in our model at higher chemical potentials, and analyze its origin.