From FAIR to RHIC, hyper clusters and an effective strange EoS for QCD

TL;DR

This paper discusses new mechanisms for hypernuclei production, the impact of local strangeness on the QCD equation of state, and presents an effective EoS incorporating phase transitions relevant for heavy ion collisions and neutron stars.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hypernuclei production mechanism and develops an effective strange QCD equation of state with phase transition features.

Findings

Hypernuclei production from $ ext{Lambda}$ absorption in peripheral collisions.

Strangeness fraction influences the QCD equation of state.

An effective EoS with deconfinement and chiral transition included.

Abstract

Two major aspects of strange particle physics at the upcoming FAIR and NICA facilities and the RHIC low energy scan will be discussed. A new distinct production mechanism for hypernuclei will be presented, namely the production abundances for hypernuclei from $\Lambda$'s absorbed in the spectator matter in peripheral heavy ion collisions. As strangeness is not uniformly distributed in the fireball of a heavy ion collision, the properties of the equation of state therefore depend on the local strangeness fraction. The same, inside neutron stars strangeness is not conserved and lattice studies on the properties of finite density QCD usually rely on an expansion of thermodynamic quantities at zero strange chemical potential, hence at non-zero strange-densities. We will therefore discuss recent investigations on the EoS of strange-QCD and present results from an effective EoS of QCD that includes the correct asymptotic degrees of freedom and a deconfinement and chiral phase transition.