Phase diagram and heavy-ion collisions: Overview

TL;DR

This paper reviews the QCD phase diagram in the context of heavy-ion collisions, astrophysics, and theoretical models, highlighting the overlap with predicted critical points and discussing model consistency.

Contribution

It provides an overview connecting experimental, astrophysical, and theoretical perspectives on the QCD phase diagram and critical point predictions.

Findings

Heavy-ion collision regions cover most predicted critical points.

Consistency between statistical and dynamical models is discussed.

Overlap with black hole formation processes is identified.

Abstract

The physics of the QCD phase diagram is discussed in view from heavy-ion collisions, compact astrophysical phenomena, lattice QCD and chiral effective models. We find that (T,mu_B) region probed in heavy-ion collisions and the black hole formation processes covers most of the critical point locations predicted in recent lattice QCD Monte-Carlo simulations and chiral effective models of QCD. We also discuss the consistency of the statistical model results and dynamical model description.