O(N) universality and the chiral phase transition in QCD

TL;DR

This paper investigates the universal scaling behavior of (2+1)-flavor QCD near the chiral phase transition, demonstrating O(N) scaling and proposing a method to determine the transition line's curvature at non-zero chemical potential.

Contribution

It provides evidence for O(N) scaling in (2+1)-flavor QCD and introduces a novel approach to determine the curvature of the chiral phase transition line using derivatives with respect to chemical potential.

Findings

Evidence for O(N) scaling of the chiral order parameter.

A method to determine the curvature of the phase transition line.

Insights into the scaling properties near the chiral transition.

Abstract

We discuss universal scaling properties of (2+1)-flavor QCD in the vicinity of the chiral phase transition at vanishing as well as non-vanishing light quark chemical potential (mu_l). We provide evidence for O(N) scaling of the chiral order parameter in (2+1)-flavor QCD and show that the scaling analysis of its derivative with respect to the light quark chemical potential provides a unique approach to the determination of the curvature of the chiral phase transition line in the vicinity of mu_l/T=0.