The QCD Phase Structure at High Baryon Density

Understand

We consider the possibility that color deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration do not coincide in dense baryonic matter at low temperature.

• As a consequence, a state of massive "constituent" quarks would exist as an intermediate phase between confined nuclear matter and the plasma of deconfined massless quarks and gluons.
• We discuss the properties of this state and its relation to the recently proposed quarkyonic matter.