ABSTRACT
We study lattice QCD with four flavors of staggered quarks. In the limit of infinite gauge coupling, "dual" variables can be introduced, which render the finite-density sign problem mild and allow a full determination of the µ-T phase diagram by Monte Carlo simulations, also in the chiral limit. However, the continuum limit coincides with the weak coupling limit. We propose a strong-coupling expansion approach towards the continuum limit. We show first results, including the phase diagram and its chiral critical point, from this expansion truncated at next-to-leading order.
ABSTRACT
Lattice QCD at finite density suffers from a severe sign problem, which has so far prohibited simulations of the cold and dense regime. Here we study the onset of nuclear matter employing a three-dimensional effective theory derived by combined strong coupling and hopping expansions, which is valid for heavy but dynamical quarks and has a mild sign problem only. Its numerical evaluations agree between a standard Metropolis and complex Langevin algorithm, where the latter is free of the sign problem. Our continuum extrapolated data approach a first order phase transition at µ(B) ≈ m(B) as the temperature approaches zero. An excellent description of the data is achieved by an analytic solution in the strong coupling limit.
