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WS17/18 – Abstract
Sayantan Sharma
(University of Mainz)
14.12.2017
The topological properties of QCD in and out-of equilibrium
The topological properties of strongly interacting matter described by Quantum Chromodynamics, both in and out of equilibrium, are key to the understanding of the mechanism of confinement and chiral symmetry breaking. In this talk I will discuss the new ideas and results emerging from recent studies using lattice gauge theory techniques. Firstly I will discuss how quantum anomalies influence the universality and nature of the chiral phase transition in QCD with two light quark flavors and the understanding we have gained from our recent lattice studies about its microscopic origin. Next I will discuss our latest results on the topological susceptibility of QCD and motivate how its unique temperature dependence gives a glimpse of the underlying microscopic topological properties of QCD. Using these results, we are now able to set bounds on the axion mass if indeed QCD axions are cold dark matter candidates. I will conclude by giving a summary of our efforts to extend lattice techniques to understand topology induced transport properties in strongly interacting matter away from equilibrium.
