Second-order chiral phase transition in three-flavor quantum chromodynamics?

Abstract

We calculate the renormalization group flows of all perturbatively renormalizable interactions in the three-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau potential for the chiral phase transition of three-flavor quantum chromodynamics. On the contrary to the common belief we find a fixed point in the system that is able to describe a second-order phase transition in the infrared. This shows that long-standing assumptions on the transition order might be false. If the transition is indeed of second order, our results may hint that the axial $U(1)$ symmetry restores at the transition temperature.

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