SAIP2026

Competing Condensates in Holographic QCD

7 Jul 2026, 10:10

20m

Lecture Hall DL2 (University of the Western Cape)

Oral Presentation Track G - Theoretical and Computational Physics Theoretical and Computational Physics

Speaker

Akash Singh (University of the Witwatersrand)

Description

At finite baryon chemical potential and low temperatures, QCD is expected to exhibit a rich phase structure characterized by the formation of quark bilinear and multi-quark condensates. However, the strongly coupled nature of QCD in this regime, together with the sign problem in lattice simulations at finite density, renders first-principles analyses extremely challenging. While effective field theory approaches provide valuable insights, no single framework fully captures the competition between distinct symmetry-breaking phases.

Gauge/gravity duality offers a complementary nonperturbative framework to study strongly coupled gauge theories. In this work, we employ a bottom-up five-dimensional holographic model inspired by holographic superconductor setups at finite baryon chemical potential. The model incorporates two charged bulk scalar fields dual to operators with distinct baryon charges and scaling dimensions, allowing for competing instabilities in the dual field theory.

We perform a systematic analysis of the competition and possible coexistence between condensates by varying the charge and scaling dimension of the dual operators. Our preliminary results indicate that coexistence is restricted to a finite region of parameter space, while outside this region one condensate generically dominates and suppresses the others. This suggests a nontrivial phase structure with distinct symmetry-breaking phases separated by phase transitions, highlighting the sensitivity of coexistence to operator quantum numbers.