Andreas Schmitt

Astrophysical data from compact stars as well as data from future experiments at FAIR (Darmstadt) and NICA (Dubna) are and will be able to probe the physics of ultra-dense nuclear and, possibly, quark matter. One theoretical approach to such dense matter is to start from asymptotically large densities, where perturbative methods are applicable. In this case, the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase is the ground state for sufficiently small temperatures. In an ongoing research effort, properties of this phase have been and should be computed in order to relate them to astrophysical signals and experimental data. Moreover, the ground state of QCD at large, but not asymptotically large, densities is still unknown. Therefore, other candidate phases have to be studied, for instance with the help of phenomenological models. Schmitt and collaborators have contributed to various aspects of this line of research, for instance to the calculation of transport properties of various color superconductors and the systematic study of possible non-CFL phases. One of the main goals for the near future is a thorough understanding of the hydrodynamics of superfluid quark and nuclear matter, which is crucial for the understanding of various astrophysical phenomena, such as the so-called r-mode instability.

In the recent years, Schmitt and collaborators have also contributed to novel approaches to hot and dense QCD matter with the help of the AdS/CFT correspondence, in particular the Sakai-Sugimoto model. In this model, confinement and chiral symmetry breaking can be studied, and important questions regarding these transitions in a background magnetic field have been addressed. This is of interest for both heavy-ion collisions and compact stars, where huge magnetic fields are created. In the near future, one of the goals is to understand the chiral transition in dense, magnetized matter, which has turned out to be full of interesting and novel physics.