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arXiv · 2602.14489

Flavor dependence of chiral symmetry breaking and the conformal window

Yi-huai Chen·Yi Lu·Zhi-wei Wang·Yu-xin Liu·Fei Gao
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Abstract

We investigate the phase structure of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in the vacuum as a function of quark flavor number $N_f$ within the chiral limit. By self-consistently solving the coupled DSEs for the quark and gluon propagators in a minimal QCD scheme, we elucidate the nonperturbative dynamics governing dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. Our calculations determine a critical flavor number of $N_f^c=6.81$ which marks the chiral symmetry restoration of quarks. Further analysis reveals the critical exponents of the chiral condensate as $ -\langle\bar{\psi} {\psi}\rangle\sim |N_f-N_f^c|^{0.53(9)}$, characterized the second order feature of this phase transition of chiral symmetry. Additionally, we discuss the implications for the walking regime towards the conformal window at larger flavor.

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Yi-huai Chen, Yi Lu, Zhi-wei Wang, Yu-xin Liu, Fei Gao. 2026-02-16. Flavor dependence of chiral symmetry breaking and the conformal window. https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14489

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