Popcorn Transitions and Approach to Conformality in Homogeneous Holographic Nuclear Matter

Abstract

We study cold and dense nuclear matter by using the gauge/gravity duality. To this end, we use the Witten–Sakai–Sugimoto model and the V-QCD models with an approach where the nuclear matter is taken to be spatially homogeneous. We focus on the “popcorn” transitions, which are phase transitions in the nuclear matter phases induced by changes in the layer structure of the configuration on the gravity side. We demonstrate that the equation of state for the homogeneous nuclear matter becomes approximately conformal at high densities, and compare our results to other approaches.

Keywords

• gauge/gravity duality
• quantum chromodynamics
• dense matter