Zero Mode in a Strongly Coupled Quark Gluon Plasma

Journal Article · Wed Apr 23 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.89.076009· OSTI ID:1530873

Gao, Fei; Qin, Si-xue; Liu, Yu-xin; Roberts, Craig D.; Schmidt, Sebastian M.

In connection with massless two-flavor QCD, we analyze the chiral symmetry restoring phase transition using three distinct gluon-quark vertices and two different assumptions about the long-range part of the quark-quark interaction. In each case, we solve the gap equation, locate the transition temperature T-c, and use the maximum entropy method to extract the dressed-quark spectral function at T>T-c. Our best estimate for the chiral transition temperature is T-c=147 +/- 8 MeV, and the deconfinement transition is coincident. For temperatures markedly above Tc, we find a spectral density that is consistent with those produced using a hard thermal loop expansion, exhibiting both a normal and plasmino mode. On a domain T is an element of[T-c, T-s] , with T-s approximate to 1.5T(c), however, with each of the six kernels we considered, the spectral function contains a significant additional feature. Namely, it displays a third peak, associated with a zero mode, which is essentially nonperturbative in origin and dominates the spectral function at T=Tc. We suggest that the existence of this mode is a signal for the formation of a strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma and that this strongly interacting state of matter is likely a distinctive feature of the QCD phase transition.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science - Office of Nuclear Physics; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1530873
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 89, Issue 7
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English