Effective Polyakov loop models for QCD-like theories at finite chemical potential

Understand

We study genuine finite density effects in QCD-like theories with three-dimensional Polyakov-loop effective theories for heavy quarks.

• These are derived from the full QCD-like theories by combined strong-coupling and hopping expansions.
• In particular, we investigate the cold and dense regimes of phase diagrams where we expect to find Bose-Einstein-condensation of diquark baryons or a fermionic first-order liquid-gas transition, depending on the gauge group of the theory.
• In two-color QCD, for example, we observe evidence of a continuous zero-temperature transition to finite diquark density when the quark chemical potential $\mu$ reaches half the diquark mass, i.e.