English

Has the QCD Critical Point been Signaled by Observations at RHIC ?

Nuclear Experiment 2008-11-26 v5

Abstract

The shear viscosity to entropy ratio (η/s\eta/s) is estimated for the hot and dense QCD matter created in Au+Au collisions at RHIC (sNN=200\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200 GeV). A very low value is found η/s0.1\eta/s \sim 0.1, which is close to the conjectured lower bound (1/4π1/4\pi). It is argued that such a low value is indicative of thermodynamic trajectories for the decaying matter which lie close to the QCD critical end point.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.nucl-ex/0609025,
  title  = {Has the QCD Critical Point been Signaled by Observations at RHIC ?},
  author = {Roy A. Lacey and N. N. Ajitanand and J. M. Alexander and P. Chung and W. G. Holzmann and M. Issah and A. Taranenko and P. Danielewicz and Horst Stocker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nucl-ex/0609025},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures. Revised version, accepted for publication in PRL