Is the 2-Flavor Chiral Transition of First Order?

Abstract

We study the effects of the interaction between the Chiral condensate and the Polyakov loop on the chiral transition within an effective Lagrangian. We find that the effects of the interaction change the order of the phase transition when the explicit breaking of the Z_N symmetry of the Polyakov loop is large. Our results suggest that the chiral transition in 2-flavor QCD may be first order.

Comments: 8 pages with 4 figures