QCD phase diagram using PNJL model with eight-quark interactions

TL;DR

This paper explores the QCD phase diagram using an extended PNJL model with eight-quark interactions, revealing shifts in critical points and good qualitative agreement with lattice data on fluctuations.

Contribution

It introduces eight-quark interactions into the PNJL model to better understand the QCD phase diagram and conserved charge fluctuations.

Findings

Critical end point shifts to lower chemical potential and higher temperature.

Fluctuation results qualitatively match lattice data.

Model provides insights into phase transitions at vanishing chemical potential.

Abstract

We present the phase diagram and the fluctuations of different conserved charges like quark number, charge and strangeness at vanishing chemical potential for the 2+1 flavor Polyakov Loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with eight-quark interaction terms using three-momentum cutoff regularisation. The main effect of the higher order interaction term is to shift the critical end point to the lower value of the chemical potential and higher value of the temperature. The fluctuations show good qualitative agreement with the lattice data.