Relativistic Cooper pairing in the microscopic limit of chiral random matrix theory

TL;DR

The paper introduces a novel non-Hermitian, chiral random-matrix model that captures color superconductivity in dense QCD within the microscopic large-$N$ limit. For three degenerate flavors, it exhibits color–flavor locking analogous to the CFL phase, while for two flavors it yields a 2SC-like color-breaking pattern, all without an explicit chemical potential. The mass dependence is governed by a soft diquark mode, yielding sigma-model representations with a vanishing chiral condensate in the massless limit. This framework provides a new, controllable avenue to explore CSC phenomena and suggests several extensions, including spectral studies, symmetric interactions, and connections to conventional chiral RMT via deformations that introduce non-Hermiticity and chemical-potential–like effects.

Abstract

Random matrix theory (RMT) provides a powerful framework for analyzing universal features of strongly coupled physical systems. In quantum chromodynamics (QCD), cold quark matter at asymptotically high density is expected to exhibit color superconductivity (CSC), the analogue of superconductivity in condensed-matter systems. Although CSC phases have been studied within RMT primarily in the macroscopic large-$N$ limit, where $N$ denotes the matrix size, it has remained unclear whether an RMT exists that realizes CSC in the microscopic large-$N$ limit. Here we answer this question in the affirmative by introducing a novel non-Hermitian chiral random matrix model. For three quark flavors, we show that the model exhibits spontaneous breaking of color $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ and flavor $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ symmetries down to the diagonal $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ subgroup, thereby reproducing color-flavor locking in dense QCD. For two flavors, we find that color $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ is spontaneously broken to $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ while the chiral symmetry $\mathrm{SU}(2)_{\mathrm{L}}\times\mathrm{SU}(2)_{\mathrm{R}}$ remains unbroken, consistent with the two-flavor color-superconducting phase.