State-of-the-art lattice QCD studies of hot and dense strongly interacting matter currently rely on extrapolation from zero or imaginary chemical potentials. The ill-posedness of numerical analytic continuation puts severe limitations on the reliabil
ity of such methods. Here we use the more direct sign reweighting method to perform lattice QCD simulation of the QCD chiral transition at finite real baryon density on phenomenologically relevant lattices. This method does not require analytic continuation and avoids the overlap problem associated with generic reweighting schemes, so has only statistical but no uncontrolled systematic uncertainties for a fixed lattice setup. This opens up a new window to study hot and dense strongly interacting matter from first principles. We perform simulations up to a baryochemical potential-temperature ratio of $mu_B/T=2.5$ covering most of the RHIC Beam Energy Scan range in the chemical potential. We also clarify the connection of the approach to the more traditional phase reweighting method.
The hadron resonance gas (HRG) model is often believed to correctly describe the confined phase of QCD. This assumption is the basis of many phenomenological works on QCD thermodynamics and of the analysis of hadron yields in relativistic heavy ion c
ollisions. We use first-principle lattice simulations to calculate corrections to the ideal HRG. Namely, we determine the sub-leading fugacity expansion coefficients of the grand canonical free energy, receiving contributions from processes like kaon-kaon or baryon-baryon scattering. We achieve this goal by performing a two dimensional scan on the imaginary baryon number chemical potential ($mu_B$) - strangeness chemical potential ($mu_S$) plane, where the fugacity expansion coefficients become Fourier coefficients. We carry out a continuum limit estimation of these coefficients by performing lattice simulations with temporal extents of $N_tau=8,10,12$ using the 4stout-improved staggered action. We then use the truncated fugacity expansion to extrapolate ratios of baryon number and strangeness fluctuations and correlations to finite chemical potentials. Evaluating the fugacity expansion along the crossover line, we reproduce the trend seen in the experimental data on net-proton fluctuations by the STAR collaboration.
We provide the most accurate results for the QCD transition line so far. We optimize the definition of the crossover temperature $T_c$, allowing for its very precise determination, and extrapolate from imaginary chemical potential up to real $mu_B ap
prox 300$ MeV. The definition of $T_c$ adopted in this work is based on the observation that the chiral susceptibility as a function of the condensate is an almost universal curve at zero and imaganiary $mu_B$. We obtain the parameters $kappa_2=0.0153(18)$ and $kappa_4=0.00032(67)$ as a continuum extrapolation based on $N_t=10,12$ and $16$ lattices with physical quark masses. We also extrapolate the peak value of the chiral susceptibility and the width of the chiral transition along the crossover line. In fact, both of these are consistent with a constant function of $mu_B$. We see no sign of criticality in the explored range.
We present cross-correlators of QCD conserved charges at $mu_B=0$ from lattice simulations and perform a Hadron Resonance Gas (HRG) model analysis to break down the hadronic contributions to these correlators. We construct a suitable hadronic proxy f
or the ratio $-chi_{11}^{BS}/chi_2^S$ and discuss the dependence on the chemical potential and experimental cuts. We then perform a comparison to preliminary STAR results and comment on a possible direct comparison of lattice and experiment.
Like fluctuations, non-diagonal correlators of conserved charges provide a tool for the study of chemical freeze-out in heavy ion collisions. They can be calculated in thermal equilibrium using lattice simulations, and be connected to moments of even
t-by-event net-particle multiplicity distributions. We calculate them from continuum extrapolated lattice simulations at $mu_B=0$, and present a finite-$mu_B$ extrapolation, comparing two different methods. In order to relate the grand canonical observables to the experimentally available net-particle fluctuations and correlations, we perform a Hadron Resonance Gas (HRG) model analysis, which allows us to completely break down the contributions from different hadrons. We then construct suitable hadronic proxies for fluctuations ratios, and study their behavior at finite chemical potentials. We also study the effect of introducing acceptance cuts, and argue that the small dependence of certain ratios on the latter allows for a direct comparison with lattice QCD results, provided that the same cuts are applied to all hadronic species. Finally, we perform a comparison for the constructed quantities for experimentally available measurements from the STAR Collaboration. Thus, we estimate the chemical freeze-out temperature to 165 MeV using a strangeness-related proxy. This is a rather high temperature for the use of the Hadron Resonance Gas, thus, further lattice studies are necessary to provide first principle results at intermediate $mu_B$.
SU(3) gauge theory with $N_f$ fermions in the fundamental representation serves as a theoretical testing ground for possible infrared conformal behavior, which could play a role in BSM composite Higgs models. We use lattice simulations to study the 1
0-flavor model, for which it has been claimed there is an infrared fixed point in the gauge coupling $beta$-function. Our results suggest the opposite conclusion, namely we find no $beta$-function fixed point in the explored range, with qualitative agreement with the 5-loop $overline{MS}$ prediction. We comment on the inconsistency between our findings and other studies.
We discuss the reliability of available methods to constrain the location of the QCD critical endpoint with lattice simulations. In particular we calculate the baryon fluctuations up to $chi^B_8$ using simulations at imaginary chemical potentials. We argue that they contain no hint of criticality.
We calculate several diagonal and non-diagonal fluctuations of conserved charges in a system of 2+1+1 quark flavors with physical masses, on a lattice with size $48^3times12$. Higher order fluctuations at $mu_B=0$ are obtained as derivatives of the l
ower order ones, simulated at imaginary chemical potential. From these correlations and fluctuations we construct ratios of net-baryon number cumulants as functions of temperature and chemical potential, which satisfy the experimental conditions of strangeness neutrality and proton/baryon ratio. Our results qualitatively explain the behavior of the measured cumulant ratios by the STAR collaboration.
We compute the Euclidean correlators of the stress tensor in pure $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature at zero and finite spatial momenta with lattice simulations. We perform continuum extrapolations using $N_tau=10,12,16,20$ lattices with
renormalized anisotropy 2. We use these correlators to estimate the shear viscosity of the gluon plasma in the deconfined phase. For $T=1.5T_c$ we obtain $eta/s=0.17(2)$.
We discuss near-conformal gauge theories beyond the standard model (BSM) where interesting results on the twelve-flavor $beta$-function of massless fermions in the fundamental representation of the SU(3) color gauge group and dilaton tests of the lig
ht scalar with two massless fermions in the two-index symmetric tensor (sextet) representation can be viewed as parts of the same BSM paradigm under investigation. We report results from high precision analysis of the twelve-flavor $beta$-function cite{Fodor:2016zil} refuting its published IRFP cite{Cheng:2014jba,Hasenfratz:2016dou}. We present our objections to recent claims cite{Hasenfratz:2017mdh,Hasenfratz:2017qyr} for non-universal behavior of staggered fermions used in our analysis. We also report our first analysis of dilaton tests of the light $0^{++}$ scalar in the sextet model and comment on related post-conference developments. The dilaton test is the main thrust of this conference contribution including presentation #405 on the $n_f=12$ $beta$-function and presentation #260 on dilaton tests of the sextet model. They are both selected from the near-conformal BSM paradigm.
