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[Phys-l] QGP Not According to Theory?





Current models of QCD predict that quarks will become deconfined at about
200 MEV scale. But the results at Brookhaven seem to be bringing this point into
question. The Quark soup was expected to enter a kind of gas phase at the
energies being achieved as Brookhaven but the observed jet quenching and a
phenomena called elliptic flow suggest the quark soup is really in a liquid
phase. This does indicate some evidence of deconfinement but not to the degree
expected. The only source I have for this now a scientific American article, I
could not find any papers specifically on this in the pre print archive.
In any case perhaps this suggest that "full deconfinement "will correspond
with the emergence of Han Nambu electric charge structure. The similarities
between fractional Quantum Hall effect and the quark electric charge structure
is quite striking. In a private email Wilczek has expressed this same opinion
though he wasn't able to get this idea worked out theoretically.
One might postulate that particle confinement and fractional charge are
always present together and that unconfined fractionally charged particles are
unphysical, a pet idea of mine. I am not familiar enough with the detection
technology used to know if this shift in charge structure could be detected
in the Bookhaven experiments.
A very interesting approach has been proposed by Ernesto Matute postulating
that the fractional charges is a result of a topological Chern-Simons
fractionalized hypercharge, a model highly compatible with fermion electric charge
structure proposed by Gerald Fitzpatrick several years ago in an effort to
provide insight into the family structure of Fermions.
Matute proposes two alternate Z2 symmetries which when combined (he doesn't
and this is very speculative) suggest a possibly connection to the Patti
Salam symmetry structure. Using the indices as color charge labels we get

q_12=sigma_x*Lbar q_34=sigma_x*L



I am not sure if my take on the Brookhaven results make sense given the lack
of in-depth detail in the SA article but I thought this was interesting
enough to pass along for what's it worth. See links.

Bob Zannelli


_http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-mat/pdf/0206/0206122.pdf_
(http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-mat/pdf/0206/0206122.pdf)


_http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/0412/0412172.pdf_
(http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/0412/0412172.pdf)


_http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/0404/0404047.pdf_
(http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/0404/0404047.pdf)