No Arabic abstract
Several approaches to QCD with two massless quarks at finite temperature T and baryon chemical potential mu suggest the existence of a tricritical point on the boundary of the phase with spontaneously broken chiral symmetry. In QCD with massive quarks there is then a critical point at the end of a first order transition line. We discuss possible experimental signatures of this point, which provide information about its location and properties. We propose a combination of event-by-event observables, including suppressed fluctuations in T and mu and, simultaneously, enhanced fluctuations in the multiplicity of soft pions.
Upcoming experimental programs will look for signatures of a possible critical point in the QCD phase diagram in fluctuation observables. To understand and predict these signatures, one must account for the fact that the dynamics of any critical fluctuations must be out-of-equilibrium: because of critical slowing down, the fluctuations cannot stay in equilibrium as the droplet of QGP produced in a collision expands and cools. Furthermore, their out-of-equilibrium dynamics must also influence the hydrodynamic evolution of the cooling droplet. The recently developed Hydro+ formalism allows for a consistent description of both the hydrodynamics and the out-of-equilibrium fluctuations, including the feedback between them. We shall explicitly demonstrate how this works, setting up a Hydro+ simulation in a simplified setting: a rapidity-independent fireball undergoing radial flow with an equation of state in which we imagine a critical point close to the $mu_B=0$ axis of the phase diagram. Within this setup, we show that we can quantitatively capture non-equilibrium phenomena, including critical fluctuations over a range of scales and memory effects. Furthermore, we illustrate the interplay between the dynamics of the fluctuations and the hydrodynamic flow of the fireball: as the fluid cools and flows, the dynamical fluctuations lag relative to how they would evolve if they stayed in equilibrium; there is then a backreaction on the flow itself due to the out-of-equilibrium fluctuations; and, in addition, the radial flow transports fluctuations outwards by advection. Within our model, we find that the backreaction from the out-of-equilibrium fluctuations does not yield dramatically large effects in the hydrodynamic variables. Further work will be needed in order to check this quantitative conclusion in other settings but, if it persists, this will considerably simplify future modelling.
Using the most advanced formulation of the hadron resonance gas model we analyze the two sets of irregularities found at chemical freeze-out of central nuclear-nuclear collisions at the center of mass energies 3.8-4.9 GeV and 7.6-9.2 GeV. In addition to previously reported irregularities at the collision energies 4.9 GeV and 9.2 GeV we found sharp peaks of baryonic charge density. Also we analyze the collision energy dependence of the modified Wroblewski factor and the strangeness suppression factor. Based on the thermostatic properties of the mixed phase of a 1-st order phase transition and the ones of the Hagedorn mass spectrum we explain, respectively, the reason of observed chemical equilibration of strangeness at the collision energy 4.9 GeV and above 8.7 GeV. It is argued that the both sets of irregularities possibly evidence for two phase transitions, namely, the 1-st order transition at lower energy range and the 2-nd order transition at higher one. In combination with a recent analysis of the light nuclei number fluctuations we conclude that the center of mass collision energy range 8.8-9.2 GeV may be in the nearest vicinity of the QCD tricritical endpoint. The properties of the phase existing between two phase transitions are revealed and discussed.
Fireballs created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at different beam energies have been argued to follow different trajectories in the QCD phase diagram in which the QCD critical point serves as a landmark. Using a (1+1)-dimensional model setting with transverse homogeneity, we study the complexities introduced by the fact that the evolution history of each fireball cannot be characterized by a single trajectory but rather covers an entire swath of the phase diagram, with the finally emitted hadron spectra integrating over contributions from many different trajectories. Studying the phase diagram trajectories of fluid cells at different space-time rapidities, we explore how baryon diffusion shuffles them around, and how they are affected by critical dynamics near the QCD critical point. We find a striking insensitivity of baryon diffusion to critical effects. Its origins are analyzed and possible implications discussed.
Lattice QCD calculations of baryon forces are performed for the first time with (almost) physical quark masses. $N_f = 2+1$ dynamical clover fermion gauge configurations are generated at the lattice spacing of $a simeq 0.085$ fm on a $(96 a)^4 simeq (8.2 {rm fm})^4$ lattice with quark masses corresponding to $(m_pi, m_K) simeq (146, 525)$ MeV. Baryon forces are calculated using the time-dependent HAL QCD method. In this report, we study $XiXi$ and $NN$ systems both in $^1S_0$ and $^3S_1$-$^3D_1$ channels, and the results for the central and tensor forces as well as phase shifts in the $XiXi$ $(^1S_0)$ channel are presented.
We study the angular broadening of a medium-induced QCD cascade. We derive the equation that governs the evolution of the average transverse momentum squared of the gluons in the cascade as a function of the medium length, and we solve this equation analytically. Two regimes are identified. For a medium of a not too large size, and for not too soft gluons, the transverse momentum grows with the size of the medium according to standard momentum broadening. The other regime, visible for a medium of a sufficiently large size and very soft gluons, is a regime dominated by multiple branchings: there, the average transverse momentum saturates to a value that is independent of the size of the medium. This structure of the in-medium QCD cascade is, at least qualitatively, compatible with the recent data on dijet asymmetry.