Splitting of the chiral critical point and realization of solitonic pion condensate driven by isospin density

Abstract

We study the influence of the isospin asymmetry on the phase structure of strongly interacting quark matter near the tricritical point (TCP) using a generalized Ginzburg-Landau approach. The effect has proven to be so drastic, not only bringing about the shift of the location of TCP, but resulting in a rich fine structure at the vicinity of TCP. In particular, we find that an arbitrary small perturbation due to isospin density lifts the degeneracy of TCP making it split into four independent multicritical points. Accordingly, the homogeneous pion condensate and its solitonic counterpart come to occupy large domains in the Ginzburg-Landau coupling space.