Volume fluctuations and higher order cumulants of the net baryon number

TL;DR

This paper derives universal formulas for net baryon number cumulants considering volume fluctuations and assesses their impact on critical behavior using a quark-meson model.

Contribution

It introduces a general formalism for calculating cumulants with volume fluctuations and evaluates their effects within a specific theoretical model.

Findings

Volume fluctuations enhance baryon number cumulants.

Higher order cumulants' critical behavior can be significantly altered.

Universal expressions for cumulants with arbitrary volume distributions.

Abstract

We consider the effect of volume fluctuations on cumulants of the net baryon number. Based on a general formalism, we derive universal expressions for the net baryon number cumulants in the presence of volume fluctuations with an arbitrary probability distribution. The relevance of these fluctuations for the baryon-number cumulants and in particular for the ratios of cumulants is assessed in the Polyakov loop extended quark-meson model within the functional renormalization group. We show that the baryon number cumulants are generally enhanced by volume fluctuations and that the critical behavior of higher order cumulants may be modified significantly.