muQCD

QCD at finite baryon density



Physics

Universität Münster
Institut für Theoretische Physik

Based on model calculations and early lattice attempts, it is widely believed that the QCD crossover from hadronic to quark gluon behaviour at finite temperature strengthens with increasing baryon density, to turn into a real phase transition at some critical end point in the phase diagram parametrised by temperature and quark chemical potential. Furthermore, this critical point is believed to be a chiral critical point which is continuously connected to the chiral transitions at zero density and lower quark masses. The lattice simulations performed by us at HLRS have shown that for coarse lattices N_t=4, a~0.3 fm, this is not the case. Instead, the chiral transition weakens as a real chemical potential is switched on. Furthermore, decreasing the lattice spacing also appears to weaken the transition. We propose to extend this study by investigating the situation on finer lattices.