2025/08/04 by Kapusta, Joseph I., Wan, Shensong · 1 citation
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2508.02845
Lattice QCD calculations have shown that the transition from hadrons to quarks and gluons is a rapid crossover at T = 155-160 MeV at vanishing chemical potential. Many model calculations show that the transition is first-order at sufficiently high baryon chemical potential. It is then natural to expect the existence of a critical point where the crossover and first-order phase transition lines meet. We show how to embed a phase boundary that terminates at the critical point in a smooth background equation of state, using several different but closely related criteria, so as to yield the critical exponents and critical amplitude ratios expected of a transition in the 3D Ising and liquid-gas universality class. The crossover curves can be tuned to pass through experimental freeze-out data from heavy ion collisions at RHIC and the LHC. The resulting equations of state can be used in hydrodynamic simulations of these collisions to probe the existence of a critical point and corresponding first-order phase transition.