Understanding of QCD at high density from Z3-symmetric QCD-like theory

TL;DR

This paper explores the phase structure of a Z_3-symmetric QCD-like theory at high density and temperature, revealing confinement, chiral symmetry, and color superconductivity phases, and discusses implications for lattice QCD simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a Z_3-symmetric SU(3) gauge theory with a flavor-dependent twist boundary condition, providing insights into QCD phases and sign problem mitigation at high density.

Findings

Confined phase with zero Polyakov loop at T \\lsim 200 MeV.

Color superconducting phase dominates at mu \\gsim 300 MeV and T \\lsim 100 MeV.

Sign problem is less severe in the perfectly confined phase with \\varphi=0.

Abstract

We investigate QCD at large mu/T by using Z_3-symmetric SU(3) gauge theory, where mu is the quark-number chemical potential and T is temperature. We impose the flavor-dependent twist boundary condition on quarks in QCD. This QCD-like theory has the twist angle theta as a parameter, and agrees with QCD when theta=0 and becomes symmetric when theta=2\pi/3. For both QCD and the Z_3-symmetric SU(3) gauge theory, the phase diagram is drawn in mu--T plane with the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. In the Z_3-symmetric SU(3) gauge theory, the Polyakov loop varphi is zero in the confined phase appearing at T \lsim 200 MeV. The perfectly confined phase never coexists with the color superconducting (CSC) phase, since finite diquark condensate in the CSC phase breaks Z_3 symmetry and then makes varphi finite. When mu \gsim 300 MeV, the CSC phase is more stable than the perfectly confined phase at T \lsim 100 MeV. Meanwhile, the chiral symmetry can be broken in the perfectly confined phase, since the chiral condensate is Z_3 invariant. Consequently, the perfectly confined phase is divided into the perfectly confined phase without chiral symmetry restoration in a region of mu \lsim 300 MeV and T \lsim 200 MeV and the perfectly confined phase with chiral symmetry restoration in a region of \mu \gsim 300 MeV and 100 \lsim T \lsim 200 MeV. The basic phase structure of Z_3-symmetric QCD-like theory remains in QCD. We show that in the perfectly confined phase the sign problem becomes less serious because of \varphi=0, using the heavy quark theory. We discuss a lattice QCD framework to evaluate observables at \theta=0 from those at \theta=2\pi/3.