Chemical potential differentials in the QCD phase diagram from heavy-ion isobar collisions
Nuclear Theory
2026-01-30 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment
High Energy Physics - Lattice
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
Temperature and baryon, charge, and strangeness chemical potentials characterize QCD matter under extreme conditions. Differences between these chemical potentials and their ratios probe conserved-charge correlations and the system's response in the multidimensional QCD phase diagram. We extract these quantities from STAR Ru+Ru and Zr+Zr isobar collisions using a Bayesian thermal analysis of hadron yields, which substantially reduces systematic uncertainties, and compare them with Taylor-expanded lattice-QCD and Chiral Mean Field model predictions. Isobar collisions thus emerge as a precision probe of four-dimensional QCD thermodynamics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2601.21232,
title = {Chemical potential differentials in the QCD phase diagram from heavy-ion isobar collisions},
author = {Joaquin Grefa and Chun Yue Tsang and Rajesh Kumar and Veronica Dexheimer and Claudia Ratti and Zhangbu Xu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.21232},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
5 pages plus 3 pages of supplementary material