Published July 2014 | Version v1
Journal article

Inflection point as a characteristic of the QCD critical point

Description

In the universality class of the critical point of QCD, the appearance of the inflection point in the equation of state (EoS) is associated with the second order phase transition. The high cumulants of conserved quantities near the critical point are corresponding to the high derivatives of the EoS near the inflection point. The critical behavior of high cumulants of conserved charge near the QCD critical point, in particular, the sign change, is closely related to the appearance of inflection point. We show in general how the times of sign change of high cumulants relate to the order of derivative. We also demonstrate that the character of inflection point of EoS is as visible as the sign change of high cumulants in 3 systems, i.e., the van der Waals equation of fluid, the energy of spin model and the baryon number density of QCD matter. Therefore, we propose that the EoS, or the mean of baryon number density, should be measured and studied together with its higher cumulants in exploring the QCD critical point in heavy ion collisions

Availability note (English)

Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2014.03.019

Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2014.03.019;
arXiv
arXiv:1307.2285v1;
PII
S0375-9474(14)00077-3;

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Nuclear Physics. A
Journal Volume
927
Journal Page Range
p. 69-77
ISSN
0375-9474
CODEN
NUPABL

Optional Information

Copyright
Copyright (c) 2014 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved.