arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Vladimir V. Skokov.
We make a simple observation about two models used to treat the region near the critical temperature of QCD, quasiparticle and matrix models. While they appear very different, we show how these two models might be related. We also present results for the temperature dependence of the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy in a matrix model, and suggest that quasi-particle models may behave similarly.
Using a matrix model, we model the deconfining phase transition at nonzero temperature for a SU(N) gauge theory at large $N$. At infinite $N$ the matrix model exhibits a Gross-Witten-Wadia transition. We show that as a consequence, both the order-disorder and the order-order interface tensions vanish identically at the critical temperature $T_d$. We estimate how these quantities vanish in the matrix model as $T \rightarrow T_d$ and as $N \rightarrow \infty$. The numerical solution of the matrix model suggests possible non-monotonic behavior in $N$ for relatively small values of $N \sim 5$.
We consider the position of the deconfining critical endpoint, where the first order transition for deconfinement is washed out by the presence of massive, dynamical quarks. We use an effective matrix model, employed previously to analyze the transition in the pure glue theory. If the param- eters of the pure glue theory are unaffected by the presence of dynamical quarks, and if the quarks only contribute perturbatively, then for three colors and three degenerate quark flavors this quark mass is very heavy, m_de \sim 2.5 GeV, while the critical temperature, T_de, barely changes, \sim 1% below that in the pure glue theory. The location of the deconfining critical endpoint is a sensitive test to differentiate between effective models. For example, models with a logarithmic potential for the Polyakov loop give much smaller values of the quark mass, m_de \sim 1 GeV, and a large shift in T_de \sim 10% lower than that in the pure glue theory.