Role of the tetraquark in the chiral phase transition

Achim Heinz, Stefan Struber, Francesco Giacosa, Dirk H. Rischke

Published 2008-05-08, updated 2009-03-24Version 3

We investigate the implications of a tetraquark field on chiral symmetry restoration at nonzero temperature. In order for the chiral phase transition to be cross-over, as shown by lattice QCD studies, a strong mixing between scalar quarkonium and tetraquark fields is required. This leads to a light ($\sim0.4$ GeV), predominantly tetraquark state, and a heavy ($\sim1.2$ GeV), predominantly quarkonium state in the vacuum, in accordance with recently advocated interpretations of spectroscopy data. The mixing even increases with temperature and leads to an interchange of the roles of the originally heavy, predominantly quarkonium state and the originally light, predominantly tetraquark state. Then, as expected, the scalar quarkonium is a light state when becoming degenerate in mass with the pion as chiral symmetry is restored at nonzero temperature.