Properties of the electroweak vacuum versus the QCD-vacuum in strong magnetic fields

Abstract

In strongly magnetized backgrounds, electrically charged vector bosons can condense. When considering the rho-meson sector of QCD, this results in the existence of a superconducting state with Abrikosov vortices. As a next order effect, also the neutral mesons condense and one expects the resulting lattice to be a mix of neutral and charged condensates, opening a possibility to the existence of a superfluid property. We will show how the detailed structure of the vacuum can be calculated and which implications it has on the nature of the exotic superconducting state.

Comments: 8 pages, 4 figures, Talk given at the International Workshop on QCD Green's Functions, Confinement and Phenomenology, 5-9 September 2011, Trento, Italy