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arXiv · 1207.3005

Onset Transition to Cold Nuclear Matter from Lattice QCD with Heavy Quarks

Michael Fromm·Jens Langelage·Stefano Lottini·Mathias Neuman·Owe Philipsen
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Abstract

Lattice QCD at finite density suffers from a severe sign problem, which has so far prohibited simulations of the cold and dense regime. Here we study the onset of nuclear matter employing a three-dimensional effective theory derived by combined strong coupling and hopping expansions, which is valid for heavy but dynamical quarks and has a mild sign problem only. Its numerical evaluations agree between a standard Metropolis and complex Langevin algorithm, where the latter is free of the sign problem. Our continuum extrapolated data clearly show a first order phase transition building up at $μ_B \approx m_B$ as the temperature approaches zero. An excellent description of the data is achieved by an analytic solution in the strong coupling limit.

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Michael Fromm, Jens Langelage, Stefano Lottini, Mathias Neuman, Owe Philipsen. 2013-03-01. Onset Transition to Cold Nuclear Matter from Lattice QCD with Heavy Quarks. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.110.122001

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