High density QCD with static quarks

TL;DR

This paper investigates lattice QCD with static quarks at high density, revealing that the deconfinement transition becomes a smooth crossover and chiral symmetry remains broken at all densities.

Contribution

It introduces a controlled approximation for high-density lattice QCD with static quarks and analyzes the nature of phase transitions in this regime.

Findings

Deconfinement transition becomes a smooth crossover at nonzero density.

Chiral symmetry remains broken at all densities at low temperature.

The approximation is analogous to the quenched approximation at zero density.

Abstract

We study lattice QCD in the limit that the quark mass and chemical potential are simultaneously made large, resulting in a controllable density of quarks which do not move. This is similar in spirit to the quenched approximation for zero density QCD. In this approximation we find that the deconfinement transition seen at zero density becomes a smooth crossover at any nonzero density, and that at low enough temperature chiral symmetry remains broken at all densities.