Fermionic domain-wall Skyrmions of QCD in a magnetic field

Abstract

The ground state of low-energy QCD matter in strong magnetic fields is either a chiral soliton lattice (CSL), a periodic array of neutral pion domain walls (chiral solitons) perpendicular to the magnetic field, or domain-wall Skyrmion phase, in which Skyrmions are induced on top of the CSL. Previously found domain-wall Skyrmions are bosons with the baryon number two. In this paper, we show that the minimum domain-wall Skyrmions are fermions with baryon number one; a bosonic domain-wall Skyrmion can be separated without energy cost into two fermionic domain-wall Skyrmions attached on the opposite sides of a chiral soliton. The phase boundary between the CSL and domain-wall Skyrmion phases is unchanged. In the chiral limit, the CSL reduces to a linearly dependent neutral pion on the direction of the magnetic field, while fermionic domain-wall Skyrmions sit in an equal distance of half a period.