Turbulent meson condensation in quark deconfinement

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in a strongly coupled gauge theory, quark deconfinement involves a turbulent cascade of meson resonances, leading to a novel understanding of the deconfinement transition via meson condensation.

Contribution

It reveals a new mechanism where meson resonances condense turbulently during deconfinement, using holographic methods in a QCD-like theory.

Findings

Deconfinement is accompanied by meson resonance condensation.

Energy flows turbulently to higher meson modes during transition.

Deconfinement can occur below the Schwinger limit under certain conditions.

Abstract

In a QCD-like strongly coupled gauge theory at large N_c, using the AdS/CFT correspondence, we find that heavy quark deconfinement is accompanied by a coherent condensation of higher meson resonances. This is revealed in non-equilibrium deconfinement transitions triggered by static, as well as, quenched electric fields even below the Schwinger limit. There, we observe a "turbulent" energy flow to higher meson modes, which finally results in the quark deconfinement. Our observation is consistent with seeing deconfinement as a condensation of long QCD strings.