Mapping the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter

Abstract

We employ a conformal mapping to explore the thermodynamics of strongly interacting matter at finite values of the baryon chemical potential $μ$. This method allows us to identify the singularity corresponding to the critical point of a second-order phase transition at finite $μ$, given information only at $μ=0$. The scheme is potentially useful for computing thermodynamic properties of strongly interacting hot and dense matter in lattice gauge theory. The technique is illustrated by an application to a chiral effective model.

5 pages, 3 figures; published version