Asymptotic deconfinement in high-density QCD

Abstract

We discuss QCD with two light flavors at large baryon chemical potential mu. Color superconductivity leads to partial breaking of the color SU(3) group. We show that the infrared physics is governed by the gluodynamics of the remaining SU(2) group with an exponentially soft confinement scale Lambda_QCD' Delta*exp[-a*mu/(g*Delta)], where Delta<<mu is the superconducting gap, g is the strong coupling, and a=0.81... We estimate that at moderate baryon densities Lambda_QCD' is O(10 MeV) or smaller. The confinement radius increases exponentially with density, leading to "asymptotic deconfinement." The velocity of the SU(2) gluons is small due to the large dielectric constant of the medium.