How many phases meet at the chiral critical point?
We explore the phase diagram of Nambu-Jona-Lasinio-type models near the chiral critical point allowing for phases with spatially inhomogeneous chiral condensates. In the chiral limit it turns out that the region in the mean-field phase diagram where those phases are energetically preferred very generically reaches out to the chiral critical point. The preferred inhomogeneous ground state in this vicinity possibly resembles a lattice of domain wall solitons. This raises the question of their relevance for the phase diagram of QCD.
Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Dominik
D
Nickel