The Quark Structure of the Nucleon and Moat Regimes in Nuclear Matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quark substructure influences nuclear matter, revealing moat regimes in correlation functions that suggest possible liquid-crystal phases at high densities.

Contribution

It introduces a model incorporating quark substructure to analyze correlation functions, highlighting nonmonotonic behavior and phase implications in dense nuclear matter.

Findings

Identification of moat regimes in correlation functions

Nonmonotonic inverse static correlation functions in momentum space

Potential for liquid-crystal phases at high densities

Abstract

We employ a model of nuclear structure that takes into account the quark substructure of the baryons to understand the behavior of static two-point correlation functions of meson fields in dense nuclear matter. We show that these correlation functions display ``moat'' regimes, where the inverse static correlation function is nonmonotonic in momentum space. This can have interesting consequences for the nature of nuclear matter, and it strengthens the possibility of a liquid-crystal phase for high densities.