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F. Wilczek

Publications and source records attributed to F. Wilczek.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2006

Gapless Surfaces in Anisotropic Superfluids

We demonstrate when p-wave pairing occurs between species whose free Fermi surfaces are mismatched the gap generally vanishes over a two-dimensional surface. We present detailed calculations of condensation energy, superfluid density (Meissner mass) and specific heat for such states. We also consider stability against separation into mixed phases. According to several independent criteria that can be checked at weak coupling, the resulting ``breached'' state appears to be stable over a substantial range of parameters. The simple models we consider are homogeneous in position space, and break rotation symmetry spontaneously. They should be realizable in cold atom systems.

cond-mat.supr-con↗
arXiv2005

Breached Superfluidity via P-Wave Coupling

Anisotropic pairing between fermion species with different fermi momenta opens two-dimensional areas of gapless excitations, thus producing a spatially homogeneous state with coexisting superfluid and normal fluids. This breached pairing state is stable and robust for arbitrarily small mismatch and weak p-wave coupling.

cond-mat.supr-con↗
arXiv2003

Diquarks and Exotic Spectroscopy

We propose that the recently discovered Θbaryon is a bound state of four quarks and an antiquark, containing two highly correlated ud-pairs. If so, the Θbaryon has positive parity, and it lies in an near-ideally mixed SU(3)_{f} \mathbf{\bar{10}}_{f} oplus \mathbf{8}_{f}. The Roper resonance and the P_{11}(1710) fit naturally into this classification. We predict an isospin 3/2 multiplet of Ξ's (S=-2) with J^Π=\half^{+} around 1750 MeV. A search for manifestly exotic Ξ^{+} and Ξ^{--} in this mass range could provide a sharp test of our proposal. We predict that charm and bottom analogues of the Θbaryon are stable against strong decays.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2000

Review of Speculative "Disaster Scenarios" at RHIC

We discuss speculative disaster scenarios inspired by hypothetical new fundamental processes that might occur in high energy relativistic heavy ion collisions. We estimate the parameters relevant to black hole production; we find that they are absurdly small. We show that other accelerator and (especially) cosmic ray environments have already provided far more auspicious opportunities for transition to a new vacuum state, so that existing observations provide stringent bounds. We discuss in most detail the possibility of producing a dangerous strangelet. We argue that four separate requirements are necessary for this to occur: existence of large stable strangelets, metastability of intermediate size strangelets, negative charge for strangelets along the stability line, and production of intermediate size strangelets in the heavy ion environment. We discuss both theoretical and experimental reasons why each of these appears unlikely; in particular, we know of no plausible suggestion for why the third or especially the fourth might be true. Given minimal physical assumptions the continued existence of the Moon, in the form we know it, despite billions of years of cosmic ray exposure, provides powerful empirical evidence against the possibility of dangerous strangelet production.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1998

Imaginary chemical potential and finite fermion density on the lattice

Standard lattice fermion algorithms run into the well-known sign problem at real chemical potential. In this paper we investigate the possibility of using imaginary chemical potential, and argue that it has advantages over other methods, particularly for probing the physics at finite temperature as well as density. As a feasibility study, we present numerical results for the partition function of the two-dimensional Hubbard model with imaginary chemical potential. We also note that systems with a net imbalance of isospin may be simulated using a real chemical potential that couples to I_3 without suffering from the sign problem.

hep-lat↗
arXiv1998

Color-Flavor Locking and Chiral Symmetry Breaking in High Density QCD

We propose a symmetry breaking scheme for QCD with three massless quarks at high baryon density wherein the color and flavor SU(3)_color times SU(3)_L times SU(3)_R symmetries are broken down to the diagonal subgroup SU(3)_{color+L+R} by the formation of a condensate of quark Cooper pairs. We discuss general properties that follow from this hypothesis, including the existence of gaps for quark and gluon excitations, the existence of Nambu-Goldstone bosons which are excitations of the diquark condensate, and the existence of a modified electromagnetic gauge interaction which is unbroken and which assigns integral charge to the elementary excitations. We present mean-field results for a Hamiltonian in which the interaction between quarks is modelled by that induced by single-gluon exchange. We find gaps of order 10-100 MeV for plausible values of the coupling. We discuss the effects of nonzero temperature, nonzero quark masses and instanton-induced interactions on our results.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1998

QCD at Finite Baryon Density: Nucleon Droplets and Color Superconductivity

We use a variational procedure to study finite density QCD in an approximation in which the interaction between quarks is modelled by that induced by instantons. We find that uniform states with conventional chiral symmetry breaking have negative pressure with respect to empty space at all but the lowest densities, and are therefore unstable. This is a precisely defined phenomenon which motivates the basic picture of hadrons assumed in the MIT bag model, with nucleons as droplets of chiral symmetry restored phase. At all densities high enough that the chirally symmetric phase fills space, we find that color symmetry is broken by the formation of a condensate of quark Cooper pairs. A plausible ordering scheme leads to a substantial gap in a Lorentz scalar channel involving quarks of two colors, and a much smaller gap in an axial vector channel involving quarks of the third color.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1998

Color Superconductivity and Signs of its Formation

We study finite density QCD in an approximation in which the interaction between quarks is modelled on that induced by instantons. We sketch the mechanism by which chiral symmetry restoration at finite density occurs in this model. At all densities high enough that the chirally symmetric phase fills space, we find that color symmetry is broken by the formation of a $< qq >$ condensate of quark Cooper pairs. The formation of this color superconductor condensate lowers the energy of the system most if the up and down quark chemical potentials are equal. This suggests that the formation of such a condensate in a heavy ion collision may be accompanied by radiation of negative pions, and its decay may yield more protons than were present in the incident nuclei.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1997

Suggested new modes in supersymmetric proton decay

We show that in supersymmetric unified theories such as SO(10), implementation of the see-saw mechanism for neutrino masses introduces a new set of color triplet fields and thereby a new source of d=5 proton decay operators. For neutrino masses in a plausible range, these operators are found to have the right strength to yield observable, but not yet excluded, proton decay rates. The flavor structure of the new operators is distinctive. Proton decay modes into a charged lepton, such as l^+ π^0, l^+ K^0 and l^+ ηwhere l = e or μ, can become prominent, even for low or moderate values of tan(β) < 10, along with the νK^+ and νπ^+ modes. A distinctive feature is the charged lepton modes involving an e^+ and/or a μ^+ with the ratio Γ(l^+ K^0):Γ(l^+ π^0) = 2:1.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1994

Geometric and Renormalized Entropy in Conformal Field Theory

In statistical physics, useful notions of entropy are defined with respect to some coarse graining procedure over a microscopic model. Here we consider some special problems that arise when the microscopic model is taken to be relativistic quantum field theory. These problems are associated with the existence of an infinite number of degrees of freedom per unit volume. Because of these the microscopic entropy can, and typically does, diverge for sharply localized states. However the difference in the entropy between two such states is better behaved, and for most purposes it is the useful quantity to consider. In particular, a renormalized entropy can be defined as the entropy relative to the ground state. We make these remarks quantitative and precise in a simple model situation: the states of a conformal quantum field theory excited by a moving mirror. From this work, we attempt to draw some lessons concerning the ``information problem'' in black hole physics

hep-th↗
arXiv1992

Static and Dynamic Critical Phenomena at a Second Order QCD Phase Transition

In QCD with two flavors of massless quarks, the chiral phase transition is plausibly in the same universality class as the classical four component Heisenberg antiferromagnet. Therefore, renormalization group techniques developed in the study of phase transitions can be applied to calculate the critical exponents which characterize the scaling behaviour of universal quantities near the critical point. This approach to the QCD phase transition has implications both for lattice gauge theory and for heavy ion collisions. Future lattice simulations with longer correlation lengths will be able to measure the various exponents and the equation of state for the order parameter as a function of temperature and quark mass which we describe. In a heavy ion collision, the consequence of a long correlation length would be large fluctuations in the number ratio of neutral to charged pions. Unfortunately, we show that this phenomenon will not occur if the plasma stays close to equilibrium as it cools. If the transition is far out of equilibrium and can be modelled as a quench, it is possible that large volumes of the plasma with the pion field correlated will develop, with dramatic phenomenological consequences. }

hep-ph↗
arXiv1992

Black Holes as Elementary Particles

It is argued that the qualitative features of black holes, regarded as quantum mechanical objects, depend both on the parameters of the hole and on the microscopic theory in which it is embedded. A thermal description is inadequate for extremal holes. In particular, extreme holes of the charged dilaton family can have zero entropy but non-zero, and even (for $a>1$) formally infinite, temperature. The existence of a tendency to radiate at the extreme, which threatens to overthrow any attempt to identify the entropy as available internal states and also to expose a naked singularity, is at first sight quite disturbing. However by analyzing the perturbations around the extreme holes we show that these holes are protected by mass gaps, or alternatively potential barriers, which remove them from thermal contact with the external world. We suggest that the behavior of these extreme dilaton black holes, which from the point of view of traditional black hole theory seems quite bizarre, can reasonably be interpreted as the holes doing their best to behave like normal elementary particles. The $a<1$ holes behave qualitatively as extended objects.

hep-th↗