Partial restoration of chiral symmetry in the color flux tube

TL;DR

This study uses lattice QCD to analyze how the chiral condensate is spatially distributed around static color sources, revealing partial chiral symmetry restoration within flux tubes and in baryonic matter.

Contribution

It provides the first lattice QCD evidence of partial chiral symmetry restoration inside color flux tubes and baryonic matter.

Findings

Chiral condensate is reduced inside flux tubes.

Chiral symmetry is partially restored in baryonic matter.

Flux structures of chromo fields are observed around static sources.

Abstract

Using the quark eigenmodes computed on the lattice with the overlap-Dirac operator, we investigate the spatial distribution of the chiral condensate around static color sources corresponding to quark-antiquark and three-quark systems. A flux structure of chromo fields appears in the presence of such color charges. The magnitude of the chiral condensate is reduced inside the color flux, which implies partial restoration of chiral symmetry inside hadrons. Taking a static baryon source in a periodic box as a toy model of nuclear matter, we estimate the magnitude of the chiral symmetry restoration as a function of baryon matter density.