Inhomogeneous phases at finite density in an external magnetic field

Abstract

The two-flavor quark-meson model is used as a low-energy effective model for QCD to study inhomogeneous chiral condensates at finite quark chemical potential $\mu$ in a constant magnetic background $B$. We determine the parameters of the model by matching the meson and quark masses, and the pion decay constant to their physical values using the on-shell and modified minimal subtraction schemes. We calculate the free energy in the mean-field approximation for a chiral density wave using dimensional regularization. The system has a surprisingly rich phase structure.

Comments: 14 pages. 6 figs