The QCD Phase Boundary from Quark-Gluon Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper investigates the QCD phase boundary at finite temperature and chemical potential using the functional renormalization group, revealing insights into the chiral phase transition and its dependence on quark chemical potential with minimal input parameters.

Contribution

It provides a novel analysis of the QCD phase boundary and chiral transition mechanism using a functional renormalization group approach with limited input parameters.

Findings

Determined the curvature of the QCD phase boundary at small chemical potential.

Analyzed the order and mechanism of the chiral phase transition.

Dependence of transition temperature on quark chemical potential.

Abstract

We study one-flavor QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential using the functional renormalization group. We discuss the chiral phase transition in QCD and its order with its underlying mechanism in terms of quarks and gluons and analyze the dependence of the phase transition temperature on small quark chemical potentials. Our result for the curvature of the phase boundary at small quark chemical potential relies on only a single input parameter, the value of the strong coupling at the Z mass scale.