English

Critical endpoint of QCD in a finite volume

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2021-11-01 v2

Abstract

We investigate the impact of finite volume and the corresponding restrictions on long-range correlations on the location of the critical endpoint in the QCD phase diagram. To this end, we employ a sophisticated combination of lattice Yang--Mills theory and a (truncated) version of Dyson--Schwinger equations in Landau gauge for 2+12 + 1 quark flavors that has been studied extensively in the past. In the infinite-volume limit, this system predicts a critical endpoint at moderate temperature and large chemical potential. We study this system at small and intermediate volumes and determine the dependence of the location of the critical endpoint on the boundary conditions and the volume of a three-dimensional cube with edge length LL. We demonstrate that noticeable volume effects of more than five percent only occur for L5fmL \lesssim 5 \, \text{fm} and that volumes as large as L3(8fm)3L^3 \gtrsim (8 \, \text{fm})^3 are very close to the infinite-volume limit.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2107.05504,
  title  = {Critical endpoint of QCD in a finite volume},
  author = {Julian Bernhardt and Christian S. Fischer and Philipp Isserstedt and Bernd-Jochen Schaefer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.05504},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

10 pages, 5 figures; v2: extended version including the zero mode, minor title change, version published in PRD