corner
corner

Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 4816–4819 (1998)

Signatures of the Tricritical Point in QCD

Download: PDF (144 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

M. Stephanov1, K. Rajagopal2, and E. Shuryak3
1Institute for Theoretical Physics, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3840
2Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
3Department of Physics and Astronomy, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3800

Received 2 June 1998; published in the issue dated 30 November 1998

See accompanying Physics Focus

Several approaches to QCD with two massless quarks at finite temperature T and baryon chemical potential μ suggest the existence of a tricritical point on the boundary of the phase with spontaneously broken chiral symmetry. In QCD with massive quarks there is then a critical point at the end of a first order transition line. We discuss possible experimental signatures of this point, which provide information about its location and properties. We propose a combination of event-by-event observables, including suppressed fluctuations in T and μ and, simultaneously, enhanced fluctuations in the multiplicity of soft pions.

© 1998 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.4816
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.4816
PACS:
12.38.-t, 05.70.Jk, 21.65.+f, 25.75.-q