Chemical freeze-out curve in heavy-ion collisions and the QCD critical point

Le résumé fourni par la source

The chemical freeze-out curve in heavy-ion collisions is investigated in the context of a quantum chromodynamics (QCD) critical point (CP) search at finite baryon densities. Taking the hadron resonance gas picture at face value, chemical freeze-out points at a given baryochemical potential provide a lower bound on the possible temperature of the QCD CP. We first verify that the freeze-out data in heavy-ion collisions are well described by a constant energy per particle curve, E / N = const , under strangeness neutrality conditions ( μ S ≠ 0 , μ Q ≠ 0 ). We then evaluate the hypothetical lower bound on the freeze-out curve based on this criterion in the absence of strangeness neutrality ( μ S = 0 , μ Q = 0 ) and confront it with recent predictions on the CP location. We find that recent estimates based on Yang-Lee edge singularities from lattice QCD data on coarse lattices ( N τ = 6 ) place the CP significantly below the freeze-out curve, hinting at the importance of performing continuum extrapolation within this method. Predictions based on functional methods and holography place the CP slightly above the freeze-out curve, indicating that the QCD CP may be located very close to the chemical freeze-out in A + A collisions at s N N = 3.5 − 6 GeV .

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