Signatures of the Tricritical Point in QCD
Abstract
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.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- November 1998
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.4816
- arXiv:
- arXiv:hep-ph/9806219
- Bibcode:
- 1998PhRvL..81.4816S
- Keywords:
-
- High Energy Physics - Phenomenology;
- Nuclear Theory
- E-Print:
- 5 pages (published version)