Towards the phase diagram of cold and dense heavy QCD

TL;DR

This paper explores the phase diagram of heavy QCD at low temperatures using an effective theory, revealing transitions like liquid-gas and Bose-Einstein condensation through mean field analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a three-dimensional Polyakov loop effective theory for heavy QCD and analyzes its phase diagram considering both baryon and isospin chemical potentials.

Findings

Identification of liquid-gas transition at zero isospin chemical potential.

Detection of Bose-Einstein condensation at zero baryon chemical potential.

Connection between different phase transitions at non-zero chemical potentials.

Abstract

The thermodynamics of QCD with sufficiently heavy dynamical quarks can be described by a three-dimensional Polyakov loop effective theory, obtained after a truncated character and hopping expansion. We investigate the resulting phase diagram for low temperatures by mean field methods. Taking into account chemical potentials for both baryon number and isospin, we obtain clear signals for a liquid-gas type transition to baryon matter at $\mu_I=0$ and a Bose-Einstein condensation transition at $\mu_B=0$, as well as for their connection when both chemical potentials are non-zero.