Jens Braun

From Quarks and Gluons to Hadrons: Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Dynamical QCD

We present an analysis of the dynamics of two-flavour QCD in the vacuum. Special attention is payed to the transition from the high energy quark-gluon regime to the low energy regime governed by hadron dynamics. This is done within a functional renormalisation group approach to QCD amended by dynamical hadronisation techniques. The latter allow us to describe conveniently the transition from the perturbative high-energy regime to the nonperturbative low-energy limit without suffering from a fine-tuning of model parameters. In the present work, we apply these techniques to two-flavour QCD with physical quark masses and show how the dynamics of the dominant low-energy degrees of freedom emerge from the underlying quark-gluon dynamics.

Phase structure of mass- and spin-imbalanced unitary Fermi gases

We study the phase diagram of mass- and spin-imbalanced unitary Fermi gases, in search for the emergence of spatially inhomogeneous phases. To account for fluctuation effects beyond the mean-field approximation, we employ renormalization group techniques. We thus obtain estimates for critical values of the temperature, mass and spin imbalance, above which the system is in the normal phase. In the unpolarized, equal-mass limit, our result for the critical temperature is in accordance with state-of-the-art Monte Carlo calculations. In addition, we estimate the location of regions in the phase diagram where inhomogeneous phases are likely to exist. We show that an intriguing relation exists between the general structure of the many-body phase diagram and the binding energies of the underlying two-body bound-state problem, which further supports our findings. Our results suggest that inhomogeneous condensates form for mass ratios of the spin-down and spin-up fermions greater than three. The extent of the inhomogeneous phase in parameter space increases with increasing mass imbalance.

Inhomogeneous phases in one-dimensional mass- and spin-imbalanced Fermi gases

We compute the phase diagram of strongly interacting fermions in one dimension at finite temperature, with mass and spin imbalance. By including the possibility of the existence of a spatially inhomogeneous ground state, we find regions where spatially varying superfluid phases are favored over homogeneous phases. We obtain estimates for critical values of the temperature, mass and spin imbalance, above which these phases disappear. Finally, we show that an intriguing relation exists between the general structure of the phase diagram and the binding energies of the underlying two-body bound-state problem.

Towards a renormalization group approach to density functional theory—general formalism and case studies

We discuss a two-particle point-irreducible (2PPI) approach to many-body physics which relies on a renormalization group (RG) flow equation for the associated effective action. In particular, the general structure and properties of this RG flow equation are analyzed in detail. Moreover, we discuss how our 2PPI-RG approach relates to density functional theory and argue that it can in principle be used to study ground-state properties of non-relativistic many-body systems from microscopic interactions, such as (heavy) nuclei. For illustration purposes, we use our formalism to compute the ground-state properties of two toy models. Communicated by Achim Schwenk

Thermal equation of state of polarized fermions in one dimension via complex chemical potentials

We present a nonperturbative computation of the equation of state of polarized, attractively interacting, nonrelativistic fermions in one spatial dimension at finite temperature. We show results for the density, spin magnetization, magnetic susceptibility, and Tans contact. We compare with the second-order virial expansion, a next-to-leading-order lattice perturbation theory calculation, and interpret our results in terms of pairing correlations. Our lattice Monte Carlo calculations implement an imaginary chemical potential difference to avoid the sign problem. The thermodynamic results on the imaginary side are analytically continued to obtain results on the real axis. We focus on an intermediate- to strong-coupling regime, and cover a wide range of temperatures and spin imbalances.

Phases of spin- and mass-imbalanced ultracold Fermi gases in harmonic traps

We analyze the phase structure of mass- and spin-imbalanced unitary Fermi gases in harmonic traps. To this end, we employ density functional theory in the local density approximation. Depending on the values of the control parameters measuring mass and spin imbalance, we observe that three regions exist in the trap, namely, a superfluid region at the center, surrounded by a mixed region of resonantly interacting spin-up and spin-down fermions, and, finally, a fully polarized phase surrounding the previous two regions. We also find regimes in the phase diagram where the existence of a superfluid region at the center of the trap is not energetically favored. We point out the limitations of our approach at the present stage and call for more detailed (ab initio) studies of the equation of state of uniform, mass-imbalanced unitary Fermi gases.

Equation of state of non-relativistic matter from automated perturbation theory and complex Langevin

We calculate the pressure and density of polarized non-relativistic systems of two-component fermions coupled via a contact interaction at finite temperature. For the unpolarized one-dimensional system with an attractive interaction, we perform a third-order lattice perturbation theory calculation and assess its convergence by comparing with hybrid Monte Carlo. In that regime, we also demonstrate agreement with real Langevin. For the repulsive unpolarized one-dimensional system, where there is a so-called complex phase problem, we present lattice perturbation theory as well as complex Langevin calculations. For our studies, we employ a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation to decouple the interaction and automate the application of Wicks theorem for perturbative calculations, which generates the diagrammatic expansion at any order. We find excellent agreement between the results from our perturbative calculations and stochastic studies in the weakly interacting regime. In addition, we show predictions for the strong coupling regime as well as for the polarized one-dimensional system. Finally, we show a first estimate for the equation of state in three dimensions where we focus on the polarized unitary Fermi gas.

QCD-inspired determination of NJL model parameters

The QCD phase diagram at finite temperature and density has attracted considerable interest over many decades now, not least because of its relevance for a better understanding of heavy-ion collision experiments. Models provide some insight into the QCD phase structure but usually rely on various parameters. Based on renormalization group arguments, we discuss how the parameters of QCD low-energy models can be determined from the fundamental theory of the strong interaction. We particularly focus on a determination of the temperature dependence of these parameters in this work and comment on the effect of a finite quark chemical potential. We present first results and argue that our findings can be used to improve the predictive power of future model calculations.

Evolution from few- to many-body physics in one-dimensional Fermi systems: One- and two-body density matrices and particle-partition entanglement

We study the evolution from few- to many-body physics of fermionic systems in one spatial dimension with attractive pairwise interactions. We determine the detailed form of the momentum distribution, the structure of the one-body density matrix, and the pairing properties encoded in the two-body density matrix. From the low- and high-momentum scaling behavior of the single-particle momentum distribution we estimate the speed of sound and Tans contact, respectively. Both quantities are found to be in agreement with previous calculations. Based on our calculations of the one-body density matrices, we also present results for the particle-partition entanglement entropy, for which we find a logarithmic dependence on the total particle number.

Formation of selfbound states in a one-dimensional nuclear model—a renormalization group based density functional study

In nuclear physics, Density Functional Theory (DFT) provides the basis for state-of-the art studies of ground-state properties of heavy nuclei. However, the direct relation of the density functional underlying these calculations and the microscopic nuclear forces is not yet fully understood. We present a combination of DFT and Renormalization Group (RG) techniques which allows to study selfbound many-body systems from microscopic interactions. We discuss its application with the aid of systems of identical fermions interacting via a long-range attractive and short-range repulsive two-body force in one dimension. We compute ground-state energies, intrinsic densities, and density correlation functions of these systems and compare our results to those obtained from other methods. In particular, we show how energies of excited states as well as the absolute square of the ground-state wave function can be extracted from the correlation functions within our approach. The relation between many-body perturbation theory and our DFT-RG approach is discussed and illustrated with the aid of the calculation of the second-order energy correction for a system of