Popcorn transitions and approach to conformality in homogeneous holographic nuclear matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates phase transitions and conformality in dense nuclear matter using holographic models, revealing popcorn transitions and an approach to conformality at high densities.

Contribution

It introduces a homogeneous approach to nuclear matter in holographic models and analyzes popcorn transitions and conformality behavior.

Findings

Identification of popcorn transitions in holographic nuclear matter

Equation of state approaches conformality at high densities

Comparison with other nuclear matter models

Abstract

We study cold and dense nuclear matter by using the gauge/gravity duality. To this end we use the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model and the V-QCD models with an approach where the nuclear matter is taken to be spatially homogeneous. We focus on the ''popcorn'' transitions, which are phase transitions in the nuclear matter phases induced by changes in the layer structure of the configuration on the gravity side. We demonstrate that the equation of state for the homogeneous nuclear matter becomes approximately conformal at high densities, and compare our results to other approaches.