Color superconductivity at large N: A new hope

Journal Article · Tue Jun 15 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.81.125021· OSTI ID:21408113

Buchoff, Michael I; Cherman, Aleksey; Cohen, Thomas D ^[1]

---

1. Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4111 (United States)

At zero density, the 't Hooft large N{sub c} limit often provides some very useful qualitative insights into the nonperturbative physics of QCD. However, it is known that at high densities the 't Hooft large N{sub c} world looks very different from the N{sub c}=3 world, which is believed to be in a color-superconducting phase at high densities. At large N{sub c}, on the other hand, the Deryagin, Grigoriev, and Rubakov instability causes a chiral-density wave phase to dominate over the color-superconducting phase. There is an alternative large N{sub c} limit, with the quarks transforming in the two-index antisymmetric representation of the gauge group, which at N{sub c}=3 reduces to QCD but looks quite different at large N{sub c}. We show that in this alternative large N{sub c} limit, the Deryagin, Grigoriev, and Rubakov instability does not occur, so that it may be plausible that the ground state of high-density quark matter is a color superconductor even when N{sub c} is large. This revives the hope that a large N{sub c} approximation might be useful for getting some insights into the high-density phenomenology of QCD.

• OSTI ID: 21408113
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 81; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
APPROXIMATIONS
CALCULATION METHODS
CHIRALITY
COLOR MODEL
COMPOSITE MODELS
DENSITY
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ENERGY LEVELS
FERMIONS
FIELD THEORIES
GROUND STATES
INSTABILITY
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATTER
PARTICLE MODELS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PERTURBATION THEORY
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
QUARK MATTER
QUARK MODEL
QUARKS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
SUPERCONDUCTORS