Dense but confined matter as a new state in QCD

Centre sector transitions in QCD-like theories with dynamical quark matter are investigated. In the hadronic phase, these transitions still take place in the infinite volume at zero temperature limit despite of the explicit breaking of the centre symmetry by the matter fields. This finding is supported by simulations of the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with Higgs matter. The phenomenological impact of the centre sector transitions for dense but confined matter is explained: centre dressed quarks acquire Bose statistics and form a so-called Fermi-Einstein condensate. This mechanism is further illustrated in the Schwinger model where it solves the Silver-Blaze problem.