Quark-hadron Phase Transition in Relativistic Mean-field Model

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quark-hadron phase transition using a relativistic mean-field model with equations of state inspired by lattice QCD, revealing a first-order transition ending at a critical point consistent with lattice results.

Contribution

It introduces a combined RMFT and lattice-inspired approach to model the quark-hadron transition, including pionic and Kaonic fields on equal footing with baryons.

Findings

First-order phase transition curve identified

Critical point coincides with lattice gauge theory results

Interactions significantly influence the transition curve

Abstract

We have studied the quark-hadron phase transition with RMFT motivated equation of state for a strongly interacting hadronic sector and lattice motivated equation of state for weakly interacting QGP sector. The interactions in hadronic sector are dominated by the exchange of scalar and vector mesons ({\sigma}_ {\sigma}, {\omega}, {\rho}, {\phi}) thereby allowing this phase to be modeled by the interacting baryonic, pionic and Kaonic fields. The pionic and Kaonic fields are incorporated on equal footing to baryonic field rather than including pions and Kaons as exchange particles only. The effect of interactions on quark-hadron phase transition curve was studied using Gibbs criteria for phase equilibrium. It was found that the first order quark hadron phase transition curve ends at a critical point, whose coordinates coincide with that of lattice gauge theory result involving lattice re-summation technique.