Ginzburg-Landau approach to inhomogeneous chiral phases of QCD

TL;DR

This paper investigates inhomogeneous chiral phases near the tricritical point of two-flavor QCD using an extended Ginzburg-Landau approach, revealing complex critical structures and energy considerations for various crystal configurations.

Contribution

It extends the Ginzburg-Landau functional to eighth order, analyzes the critical point structure, and explores energy landscapes for different inhomogeneous condensate patterns.

Findings

Critical curves are bent by non-linear effects.

The tricritical point is a multicritical point where five critical lines meet.

Energy analyses for higher-dimensional crystal structures are presented.

Abstract

We study the inhomogeneous chiral condensates in the proximity of the chiral tricritical point (TCP) of two-flavor QCD. Deriving the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) functional up to the eighth order in the order parameter and its spatial derivative, we explore off the TCP and find that critical curves are bent by non-linear effects. In the newly extend GL coupling space, we find the TCP being realized as a multicritical point where five independent critical lines meet up. We also present general analyses for the energies associated with several higher dimensional crystal structures.