Locating the QCD critical endpoint through finite-size scaling

2017/05/25 by N. G. Antoniou, F. K. Diakonos, X. N. Maintas +1
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.97.034015

published as Phys. Rev. D 97, 034015 (2018) · 4 pages, 3 figures

arxiv created 2017/05/25 · arxiv updated 2018/02/21

Abstract

Considering the 3d Ising universality class of the QCD critical endpoint we use a universal effective action for the description of the baryon-number density fluctuations around the critical region. Calculating the baryon-number multiplicity moments and determining their scaling with system's size we show that the critical region is very narrow in the direction of the baryon chemical potential μ and wide in the temperature direction T for T > T_c. In this context, published experimental results on local proton density-fluctuation measurements obtained by intermittency analysis in transverse momentum space in NA49 central A+A collisions at √s_NN=17.2 GeV (A=C,Si,Pb), restrict significantly the location (μ_c,T_c) of the QCD critical endpoint. The main constraint is provided by the freeze-out chemical potential of the Si+Si system, which shows non-conventional baryon density fluctuations, restricting (μ_c,T_c) within a narrow domain, 119~\textrmMeV ≤ T_c ≤ 162~\textrmMeV, 252~\textrmMeV ≤ μ_c ≤ 258~\textrmMeV, of the phase diagram.

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