Axial anomaly and magnetism of nuclear and quark matter
By D. Son, M. Stephanov. 2007
146 citations recorded by the source corpus.
We consider the response of the QCD ground state at finite baryon density to a strong magnetic field B. We point out the dominant role played by the coupling of neutral Goldstone bosons, such as {pi}{sup 0}, to the magnetic field via the axial triangle anomaly. We show that, in vacuum, above a value of B{approx}m{sub {pi}}{sup 2}/e, a metastable object appears - the {pi}{sup 0} domain wall. Because of the axial anomaly, the wall carries a baryon number surface density proportional to B. As a result, for B > or approx. 10{sup 19} G a stack of parallel {pi}{sup 0} domain walls is energetically more favorable than nuclear matter at the same density. Similarly, at higher densities, somewhat weaker magnetic fields of order B > or approx. 10{sup 17}-10{sup 18} G transform the color-superconducting ground state of QCD into new phases containing stacks of axial isoscalar ({eta} or {eta}{sup '}) domain walls. We also show that a quark-matter state known as ''Goldstone current state,'' in which a gradient of a Goldstone field is spontaneously generated, is ferromagnetic due to the axial anomaly. We estimate the size of the fields created by such a state in a typical neutron starmore » to be of order 10{sup 14}-10{sup 15} G.« less
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Condensed Matter Physics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f0c60b89d5570b90bc1170f51ce26e3a8a3bd777
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In Astronomy and Astrophysics
In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Citations in the corpus
- Inverse magnetic catalysis in dense holographic matter (2010, background): “) At the chiral phase transition line, the baryon number density increases from a purely topological contribution, which can be viewed as a stack of π0 domain walls [35, 56], to one that is carried by chirally symmetric quarks.”