Thermal QCD in a non-uniform magnetic background

  • Off-central heavy-ion collisions are known to feature magnetic fields with magnitudes and characteristic gradients corresponding to the scale of the strong interactions. In this work, we employ equilibrium lattice simulations of the underlying theory, QCD, involving similar inhomogeneous magnetic field profiles to achieve a better understanding of this system. We simulate three flavors of dynamical staggered quarks with physical masses at a range of magnetic fields and temperatures, and extrapolate the results to the continuum limit. Analyzing the impact of the field on the quark condensate and the Polyakov loop, we find non-trivial spatial features that render the QCD medium qualitatively different as in the homogeneous setup, especially at temperatures around the transition. In addition, we construct leading-order chiral perturbation theory for the inhomogeneous background and compare its prediction to our lattice results at low temperature. Our findings will be useful to benchmark effective theories and low-energy models of QCD for a better description of peripheral heavy-ion collisions.

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Author:Bastian Benjamin BrandtORCiDGND, Francesca CuteriORCiD, Gergely EndrődiORCiDGND, Gergely MarkóORCiD, Leon Sandbote, Adeilton Dean Marques ValoisORCiD
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-842815
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2023)229
ISSN:1029-8479
ArXiv Id:http://arxiv.org/abs/2305.19029
Parent Title (English):Journal of high energy physics
Publisher:Springer
Place of publication:Berlin ; Heidelberg
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2023/10/20
Date of first Publication:2023/10/20
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2024/06/12
Volume:11.2023
Issue:229
Article Number:229
Page Number:27
Institutes:Physik / Physik
Dewey Decimal Classification:5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 53 Physik / 530 Physik
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International