• Open Access

Unusual Features of QCD Low-Energy Modes in the Infrared Phase

Andrei Alexandru and Ivan Horváth
Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 052303 – Published 28 July 2021

Abstract

It was recently proposed that there is a phase in thermal QCD (IR phase) at temperatures well above the chiral crossover, featuring elements of scale invariance in the infrared (IR). Here, we study the effective spatial dimensions dIR of Dirac low-energy modes in this phase, in the context of pure-glue QCD. Our dIR is based on the scaling of mode support toward thermodynamic limit, and hence is an IR probe. Ordinary extended modes, such as those at high energy, have dIR=3. We find dIR<3 in the spectral range whose lower edge coincides with λIR=0, the singularity of spectral density defining the IR phase, and the upper edge with λA, the previously identified Anderson-like nonanalyticity. Details near λIR are unexpected in that only exact zero modes are dIR=3, while a thin spectral layer near zero is dIR=2, followed by an extended layer of dIR=1 modes. With only integer values appearing, dIR may have a topological origin. We find similar structure at λA, and associate its adjacent thin layer (dIR2) with Anderson-like criticality. Our analysis reveals the manner in which nonanalyticities at λIR and λA, originally identified in other quantities, appear in dIR(λ). This dimension structure may be important for understanding the near-perfect fluidity of the quark-gluon medium seen in accelerator experiments. The role of λA in previously conjectured decoupling of IR component is explained.

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  • Received 25 March 2021
  • Accepted 28 June 2021
  • Corrected 3 August 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.052303

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nuclear PhysicsParticles & Fields

Corrections

3 August 2021

Correction: A misprint of a relation sign introduced during the production process in the first inline equation of the second sentence in the fourth paragraph has been fixed.

Authors & Affiliations

Andrei Alexandru1,* and Ivan Horváth2,†

  • 1The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20052, USA
  • 2University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506, USA

  • *aalexan@gwu.edu
  • ihorv2@g.uky.edu

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Issue

Vol. 127, Iss. 5 — 30 July 2021

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