Towards a holographic model of color-flavor locking phase

Abstract

We demonstrate a holographic realization of color-flavor locking phase, using N = 4 SU(N c) SYM coupled to N = 2 N f fundamental hypermultiplets as an example. The gravity dual consists of N c D3-branes and N f D7-branes with world volume gauge field representing the baryon density. Treating a small number Ñ c ⊂ N c of D3-branes as Yang- Mills instantons on the D7-branes, we consider possible potential(s) on their moduli space or equivalently the Higgs branch. We show that a non-trivial potential can be generated by including the backreaction of the baryonic density on the D7-branes, this dynamically drives the instantons (= D3-branes) into dissolution. We interpret this as a color-flavor locking since the size of the instanton is the squark vev, and study the symmetry breaking patterns. Extending to finite temperature setup, we demonstrate that color-flavor locking persists, and the thermal effect provides additional structures in the phase diagram.