Abstract
Common lore suggests that -color QCD with massive quarks has no useful order parameters that can be nontrivial at zero baryon density. However, such order parameters do exist when there are quark flavors with a common mass and . These theories have a color-flavor center symmetry arising from intertwined color center transformations and cyclic flavor permutations. The symmetry realization depends on the temperature, baryon chemical potential, and value of , with implications for conformal window studies and dense quark matter.
- Received 27 July 2017
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.222001
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