Baryon effects on the location of QCD’s critical end point

Abstract

The location of the critical end point of QCD has been determined in previous studies of N f = 2+1 and N f = 2 + 1 + 1 dynamical quark flavors using a (truncated) set of Dyson-Schwinger equations for the quark and gluon propagators of Landau-gauge QCD. A source for systematic errors in these calculations has been the omission of terms in the quark-gluon interaction that can be parametrized in terms of baryonic degrees of freedom. These have a potentially large dependence on chemical potential and therefore may affect the location of the critical end point. In this exploratory study we estimate the effects of these contributions, both in the vacuum and at finite temperature and chemical potential. We find only a small influence of baryonic contributions on the location of the critical end point. We estimate the robustness of this result by parameterizing further dependencies on chemical potential.

Baryon number fluctuations in the QCD phase diagram from Dyson-Schwinger equations

“…[22,23] for review articles. This notion is supported by results from Dyson-Schwinger equations [24][25][26][27][28], see Ref. [29] for a recent review.…”

“…potential to shift the CEP to larger temperatures and/or chemical potentials thereby resolving this problem [27].…”

“…A different approach is possible in functional methods. In a series of works [25][26][27]55] a coupled system of Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSEs) for the quark and gluon propagators has been considered and the physics of the Columbia plot [56] has been explored. Results for QCD with heavy quarks and at physical quark masses (N f = 2 + 1 and N f = 2 + 1 + 1) but zero chemical potential agree with corresponding lattice results, see Ref.…”

Quarks and light (pseudo-)scalar mesons at finite chemical potential

“…In this work we are building upon the truncation of the gluon DSE and the quark-gluon vertex detailed in Ref. [24]. It evolved from the quenched case [25,26], to N f = 2 [27][28][29] and finally to N f = 2 + 1 and N f = 2 + 1 +1 quark flavors [29,30].…”

Interface effect in QCD phase transitions via Dyson-Schwinger equation approach

“…[1,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]), the Dyson-Schwinger equation method (see, e.g., Refs. [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]), functional renormalization group approach (see, e.g., Refs. [43][44][45][46][47][48]) and lattice QCD simulations (see, e.g., Refs.…”