Emergence of the Skyrme crystal in Gross-Neveu and ’t Hooft models at finite density

Abstract

We study two-dimensional, large N field theoretic models (Gross-Neveu model, ’t Hooft model) at finite baryon density near the chiral limit. The same mechanism which leads to massless baryons in these models induces a breakdown of translational invariance at any finite density. In the chiral limit baryonic matter is characterized by a spatially varying chiral angle with a wave number depending only on the density. For small bare quark masses a sine-Gordon kink chain is obtained which may be regarded as the simplest realization of the Skyrme crystal for nuclear matter. Characteristic differences between confining and non-confining models are pointed out.