Chiral Phase Transition in an Expanding Quark System

TL;DR

This paper models the chiral phase transition in an expanding quark-antiquark system, revealing how the transition influences flow velocity and quark dynamics through a self-consistent numerical framework.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled Vlasov and gap equation approach to study non-equilibrium chiral phase transitions in an expanding quark system.

Findings

Chiral transition causes a kink in flow velocity.

The kink is amplified by larger susceptibility.

Low-momentum quarks are reflected by the phase boundary wall.

Abstract

We investigate the influence of chiral symmetry which varies along the space-time evolution of the system by considering the chiral phase transition in an non-equilibrium expanding quark-antiquark system. The chiral symmetry is described by the mean field order parameter, whose values is the solution of a self-consistent equation, and affects the space-time evolution of the system through the force term in the Vlasov equation. The Vlasov equation and the gap equation are solved concurrently and continuously for a longitudinal boost-invariant and transversely rotation-invariant system. This numerical framework enables us to carefully investigate how the phase transition and collision affect the evolution of the system. It is observed that the chiral phase transition gives rise to a kink in the flow velocity, which is caused by the force term in the Vlasov equation. The kink is enhanced by larger susceptibility and tends to be smoothed out by non-equilibrium effect. The spatial phase boundary appears as a "wall" for the quarks, as the quarks with low momentum are bounced back, while those with high momentum go through the wall but are slowed down.