Speaker
Description
The hot quark matter created in heavy-ion collision experiments can
exhibit strong temperature and chemical-potential gradients, which in turn can generate electric fields through thermoelectric
effects. In this work, we investigate two relevant thermoelectric
coefficients—the thermopower (Seebeck coefficient) and the Thomson
coefficient—of two-flavor quark matter using the Kubo formalism and
the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model as an effective description of dense,
finite-temperature QCD. The required two-point equilibrium
correlation functions are evaluated using the Matsubara formalism of
thermal field theory, applying a $1/N_c$ expansion to the relevant
multi-loop Feynman diagrams. We employ previously derived quark
spectral functions obtained from one–meson-exchange diagrams above
the Mott transition temperature. Our numerical results show that
both thermoelectric coefficients increase approximately linearly
with temperature and decrease with increasing chemical potential. We
also estimate the magnitude of the electric fields that can be
generated in heavy-ion collisions by thermal gradients via the
Seebeck effect.