One-meson-loop NJL model: Effect of collective and noncollective excitations on the quark condensate at finite temperature

Abstract: We explore the effect of including quantum fluctuations in the two flavor Nambu$-$Jona-Lasinio model at finite temperature. This is accomplished, in a symmetry preserving way, by including collective and noncollective modes in the one-meson-loop gap equation which originate from poles and branch cuts in the complex plane, respectively. The inclusion of a boson cutoff, $\Lambda_b$, is necessary to regularize the meson-loop momenta. This new parameter is used to study the influence of going beyond the usual mean field approximation in the quark condensate. As the temperature increases, chiral symmetry tends to get restored, the collective modes melt and only noncollective modes contribute to the quark condensate. With the inclusion of such modes, the quark condensate at finite temperature has a different behavior than at mean field level that will be explored.