Dense QCD: A holographic dyonic salt

Abstract

Dense QCD at zero temperature with a large number of colors is a crystal. We show that in the holographic dual description, the crystal is made out of pairs of dyons with e = g = +/-1 charges in a salt-like arrangement. We argue that with increasing density the dyon masses and topological charges equalize, turning the salt-like configuration to a body centered cubic (bcc) crystal of half-instantons. The latter is dual to a cubic crystal of half-skyrmions. We estimate the transition from a face centered cubic (fcc) crystal of instantons to a bcc crystal of dyons to about 3 times nuclear matter density with a dyon binding energy of about 180 MeV.