Temperature and quark density effects on the chiral condensate: an AdS/QCD study

Abstract

We investigate the dependence of the chiral condensate $<\bar qq>$ on the temperature and quark density using the soft-wall holographic model of QCD, adopting geometries with black holes at finite temperature and quark chemical potential $\mu$. We find that, for $\mu$ below a critical value, increasing the temperature the condensate decreases and vanishes at a temperature $\tilde T\simeq 210$ MeV (at $\mu=0$). An analogous behaviour is observed increasing the chemical potential at fixed temperature. These results agree with the findings obtained by other methods. We also comment on the robustness of the results if geometries not involving black holes are adopted at low temperature, and an Hawking-Page transition is implemented.