Quarkyonic Effective Field Theory, Quark-Nucleon Duality and Ghosts

Abstract: We present a field theoretical description of quarkyonic matter consisting of quark, nucleon and ghost fields coupling to mesonic degrees of freedom. The ghosts are present to cancel over-counting of nucleon states that are Pauli blocked by the quark Fermi sea. Such a theory becomes an effective field theory of nucleons at low baryon density, and as such will reproduce nucleonic matter phenomenology. This theory can accommodate chiral symmetry restoration and the dynamical generation of a shell of nucleons at the Fermi surface. It is valid for finite temperature and density. In such a theory, quark-nucleon duality is accomplished by inclusion of ghost fields so that the nucleons extra degrees of freedom, that are beyond those of quarks, are compensated by the ghost fields.