Quark matter in a chiral chromodielectric model

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Abstract
Zero- and finite-temperature quark matter is studied in a chiral chromodielectric model with quark, meson, and chromodielectric degrees of freedom. The mean-field approximation is used. Two cases are considered: two-flavor and three-flavor quark matter. It is found that at sufficiently low densities and temperatures the system is in a chirally broken phase, with quarks acquiring effective masses of the order of 100 MeV. At higher densities and/or temperatures a chiral phase transition occurs and the quarks become massless. A comparison with traditional nuclear physics suggests that the chirally broken phase with massive quark gas may be the ground state of matter at densities of the order of a few nuclear saturation densities.