High-density nuclear matter with nonlocal confining solitons

Abstract

An infinite system of nonlocal, individually confining solitons is considered as a model of high-density nuclear matter. The soliton-lattice problem is discussed in the Wigner-Seitz approximation. The cell size is varied to study the density dependence of physical quantities of interest. A transition to a system where quarks can migrate between solitons is found. We argue that this signals quark deconfinement. The model is applied to the calculation of selected in-medium properties.

Comments: 23 pages with 10 figures