Phases of dense quarks at large image Original Research Article

In the limit of a large number of colors, Nc, we suggest that gauge theories can exhibit several distinct phases at nonzero temperature and quark density. Two are familiar: a cold, dilute phase of confined hadrons, where the pressure is ∼1, and a hot phase of deconfined quarks and gluons, with pressure View the MathML source. When the quark chemical potential μ∼1, the deconfining transition temperature, Td, is independent of μ. For T