Single-particle potential from resummed ladder diagrams

A recent work on the resummation of fermionic in-medium ladder diagrams to all orders is extended by calculating the complex single-particle potential $U(p,k_f)+ i\,W(p,k_f)$ for momenta $pk_f$. The on-shell single-particle potential is constructed by means of a complex-valued in-medium loop that includes corrections from a test-particle of momentum $\vec p$ added to the filled Fermi sea. The single-particle potential $U(k_f,k_f)$ at the Fermi surface as obtained from the resummation of the combined particle and hole ladder diagrams is shown to satisfy the Hugenholtz-Van-Hove theorem. The perturbative contributions at various orders $a^n$ in the scattering length are deduced and checked against the known analytical results at order $a^1$ and $a^2$. The limit $a\to\infty$ is studied as a special case and a strong momentum dependence of the real (and imaginary) single-particle potential is found. This indicates an instability against a phase transition to a state with an empty shell inside the Fermi sphere such that the density gets reduced by about 5%. For comparison, the same analysis is performed for the resummed particle-particle ladder diagrams alone. In this truncation an instability for hole-excitations near the Fermi surface is found at strong coupling. For the set of particle-hole ring diagrams the single-particle potential is calculated as well. Furthermore, the resummation of in-medium ladder diagrams to all orders is studied for a two-dimensional Fermi gas with a short-range two-body contact-interaction.Comment: 28 pages, 19 figures, to be published in European Physical Journal

Shear Viscosities from Kubo Formalism in a large-NcN_{\rm c} Nambu--Jona-Lasinio Model

In this work the shear viscosity of strongly interacting matter is calculated within a two-flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model as a function of temperature and chemical potential. The general Kubo formula is applied, incorporating the full Dirac structure of the thermal quark spectral function and avoiding commonly used on-shell approximations. Mesonic fluctuations contributing via Fock diagrams provide the dominant dissipative processes. The resulting ratio $\eta/s$ (shear viscosity over entropy density) decreases with temperature and chemical potential. Interpolating between our NJL results at low temperatures and hard-thermal-loop results at high temperatures a minimum slightly above the AdS/CFT benchmark $\eta/s=1/4\pi$ is obtained.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Revision with minor corrections matches published versio

Nuclear thermodynamics from chiral low-momentum interactions

We investigate the thermodynamic equation of state of isospin-symmetric nuclear matter with microscopic nuclear forces derived within the framework of chiral effective field theory. Two- and three-body nuclear interactions constructed at low resolution scales form the basis for a perturbative calculation of the finite-temperature equation of state. The nuclear force models and many-body methods are benchmarked against bulk properties of isospin-symmetric nuclear matter at zero temperature, which are found to be well reproduced when chiral nuclear interactions constructed at the lowest resolution scales are employed. The calculations are then extended to finite temperatures, where we focus on the liquid-gas phase transition and the associated critical point. The Maxwell construction is applied to construct the physical equation of state, and the value of the critical temperature is determined to be T_c =17.2-19.1 MeV, in good agreement with the value extracted from multifragmentation reactions of heavy ions.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables. v3 matches published versio

Divergence of the isospin-asymmetry expansion of the nuclear equation of state in many-body perturbation theory

The isospin-asymmetry dependence of the nuclear matter equation of state obtained from microscopic chiral two- and three-body interactions in second-order many-body perturbation theory is examined in detail. The quadratic, quartic and sextic coefficients in the Maclaurin expansion of the free energy per particle of infinite homogeneous nuclear matter with respect to the isospin asymmetry are extracted numerically using finite differences, and the resulting polynomial isospin-asymmetry parametrizations are compared to the full isospin-asymmetry dependence of the free energy. It is found that in the low-temperature and high-density regime where the radius of convergence of the expansion is generically zero, the inclusion of higher-order terms beyond the leading quadratic approximation leads overall to a significantly poorer description of the isospin-asymmetry dependence. In contrast, at high temperatures and densities well below nuclear saturation density, the interaction contributions to the higher-order coefficients are negligible and the deviations from the quadratic approximation are predominantly from the noninteracting term in the many-body perturbation series. Furthermore, we extract the leading logarithmic term in the isospin-asymmetry expansion of the equation of state at zero temperature from the analysis of linear combinations of finite differences. It is shown that the logarithmic term leads to a considerably improved description of the isospin-asymmetry dependence at zero temperature.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, some minor changes, references updated, matches published versio

Alpha-clustered hypernuclei and chiral SU(3) dynamics

Light hypernuclei with an $\alpha$ cluster substructure of the core nucleus are studied using an accurate cluster approach (the Hyper-THSR wave function) in combination with a density-dependent $\Lambda$ hyperon-nuclear interaction derived from chiral SU(3) effective field theory. This interaction includes important two-pion exchange processes involving $\Sigma N$ intermediate states and associated three-body mechanisms as well as effective mass and surface terms arising in a derivative expansion of the in-medium $\Lambda$ self-energy. Applications and calculated results are presented and discussed for $_\Lambda^9$Be and $^{13}_\Lambda$C. Furthermore, the result of the lightest $\alpha$ clustered hypernucleus, $^5_{\Lambda}$He using realistic $ab initio$ four nucleon density is shown.Comment: To be submitted in PTE

Nuclear density functional constrained by low-energy QCD

We have developed a relativistic point-coupling model of nuclear many-body dynamics constrained by the low-energy sector of QCD. The effective Lagrangian is characterized by density-dependent coupling strengths determined by chiral one- and two-pion exchange (with single and double delta isobar excitations) and by large isoscalar background fields that arise through changes of the quark condensate and the quark density at finite baryon density. The model has been tested in the analysis of nuclear ground-state properties along different isotope chains of medium and heavy nuclei. The agreement with experimental data is comparable with purely phenomenological predictions. The built-in QCD constraints and the explicit treatment of pion exchange restrict the freedom in adjusting parameters and functional forms of density-dependent couplings. It is shown that chiral pionic fluctuations play an important role for nuclear binding and saturation mechanism, whereas background fields of about equal magnitude and opposite sign generate the effective spin-orbit potential in nuclei.Comment: ws-procs9x6.cls, 8 pgs, Talk presented at "X Convegno su Problemi di Fisica Nucleare Teorica", Cortona (AR), 6-9 october 200