Confinement versus color superconductivity: a lattice investigation

TL;DR

This paper investigates the phenomenon of color superconductivity in high-density Yang-Mills theory using lattice simulations, focusing on the spontaneous breaking of global color symmetry and diquark condensation.

Contribution

It introduces an effective Higgs-like theory to model diquark condensation and demonstrates the spontaneous breaking of global color symmetry through numerical lattice simulations.

Findings

Spontaneous global color symmetry breaking observed in simulations.

Diquark condensation linked to confinement-Higgs transition.

Effective Higgs theory successfully models color superconductivity phenomena.

Abstract

High density YM-theory is addressed by means of an effective theory where a Higgs type field corresponds to the diquark order parameter. The effective Higgs theory mimics the Cooper instability at the Fermi surface. After Landau gauge fixing, the theory possesses a global color degree of freedom. Color superconductivity corresponds to a spontaneous breakdown of the residual global color symmetry. Numerical simulations illustrate this mechanism of spontaneously broken global color for the case of the standard electro-weak phase transition and for the case of the transition between the confinement and the Higgs phase, respectively. The latter transition is relevant for the study of diquark condensation.