Order parameters and color-flavor center symmetry in QCD

Abstract

Common lore suggests that $N$-color QCD with massive quarks has no useful order parameters which can be non-trivial at zero baryon density. However, such order parameters do exist when there are $n_f$ quark flavors with a common mass and $d\equiv \gcd (n_f,N)>1$. These theories have a ${\mathbb{Z}}_d$ color-flavor center symmetry arising from intertwined color center transformations and cyclic flavor permutations. The symmetry realization depends on the temperature, baryon chemical potential and value of $n_f/N$, with implications for conformal window studies and dense quark matter.

8 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Color superconductivity in dense quark matter
• Volume independence in large Nc QCD-like gauge theories
• Nearly conformal gauge theories in finite volume
• Lattice simulations with eight flavors of domain wall fermions in SU(3) gauge theory
• The quarkynic phase and the Z_{Nc} symmetry

Cited by in corpus (3)

• QCD on a small circle
• Anomaly matching in QCD thermal phase transition
• High-temperature domain walls of QCD with imaginary chemical potentials