The Functional Renormalisation Group and the Phase Structure of QCD

Content of lecture series

The lecture course provides an introduction to the strongly-correlated physics of QCD and application to the QCD phase structure and the dynamics of heavy ion collisions. The related physics problems are treated within the Functional Renormalisation Group (FRG), and a survey of alternative approaches is provided.

Outline

• The Functional RG
  
  • Derivation
  • Truncation schemes, optimisation & numerics
  • Fixed points in the Functional RG

• QCD
  
  • Introduction
  • Confinement & chiral symmetry breaking
  • Confinement-deconfinement phase transition at finite T
  • A glimpse at the QCD phase diagram & heavy ion collisions

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Literature

Introductory reviews on FRG

	Aoki	Introduction to the Non-perturbative RG	Int.J.Mod.Phys.B14:1249-1326,2000
	Berges, Tetradis, Wetterich	Non-Perturbative Renormalization Flow in Quantum Field Theory and Statistical Physics	Phys.Rept.363:223-386,2002
	Polonyi	Lectures on the functional renormalization group method	Central Eur.J.Phys.1:1-71,2003

Reviews on FRG in gauge theories, QCD & gravity

	Litim, Pawlowski	On gauge invariant Wilsonian flows	Proceedings 'The ERG', Word Scientific '99
	Pawlowski	On Wilsonian flows in gauge theories	Habilitation thesis, Erlangen '02
	Pawlowski	Aspects of the FRG	Annals Phys.322:2831-2915,2007
	Schaefer, Wambach	Renormalization Group Approach towards the QCD Phase Diagram	Phys.Part.Nucl. 39 (2008) 1025-1032
	Gies	Introduction to the FRG and applications to gauge theories	Lect.Notes Phys. 852 (2012) 287-348
	Braun	Fermion Interactions and Universal Behavior in Strongly Interacting Theories	J.Phys. G39 (2012) 033001
	Reuter, Saueressig	Quantum Einstein Gravity	New J.Phys. 14 (2012) 055022
	von Smekal	Universal Aspects of QCD-like Theories	Nucl.Phys.Proc.Suppl. 228 (2012) 179-220
	Niedermaier, Reuter	The Asymptotic Safety Scenario in Quantum Gravity	Living review

FRG-reviews on various topics are listed as refs. [15]-[27] in 'Aspects of the FRG' .