Inhomogeneous Polyakov loop induced by inhomogeneous chiral condensates

TL;DR

This paper investigates how spatially varying chiral condensates influence the Polyakov loop, revealing in-phase oscillations and implications for inhomogeneous confinement of heavy quarks through lattice simulations.

Contribution

It introduces an effective gluon model on inhomogeneous chiral backgrounds and demonstrates the induced inhomogeneous Polyakov loop behavior via lattice simulation.

Findings

Polyakov loop exhibits in-phase spatial oscillations with chiral condensates.

Inhomogeneous Polyakov loop suggests inhomogeneous confinement of heavy quarks.

Lattice simulations confirm the spatial correlation between chiral condensates and Polyakov loop.

Abstract

We study the spatial inhomogeneity of the Polyakov loop induced by inhomogeneous chiral condensates. We formulate an effective model of gluons on the background fields of chiral condensates, and perform its lattice simulation. On the background of inhomogeneous chiral condensates, the Polyakov loop exhibits an in-phase spatial oscillation with the chiral condensates. We also analyze the heavy quark potential and show that the inhomogeneous Polyakov loop indicates the inhomogeneous confinement of heavy quarks.