Making the most of Taylor expansion and imaginary chemical potential

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of Taylor expansion and imaginary chemical potential techniques to analyze the QCD phase diagram, focusing on systematic error control and extending the magnetic equation of state.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized magnetic equation of state for analyzing number density at imaginary chemical potential, improving systematic error management in lattice QCD.

Findings

Preliminary results for the curvature of the pseudocritical line.

Measurements of susceptibilities in Nf=2+1 flavor QCD.

Cross-validation of Taylor expansion and imaginary chemical potential methods.

Abstract

We present preliminary results for the curvature of the pseudocritical line and susceptibilities in Nf = 2 + 1 flavor QCD. The computations are carried out on lattice sizes of 16x16x16x4, at matching parameters of early work of the Bielefeld group. Emphasis is placed on the control of systematic errors, by cross-validating results obtained by use of the Taylor expansion and measurements at imaginary chemical potential. To this end, we generalize the magnetic equation of state to the analysis of the number density, and we extend it to imaginary values of the chemical potential.