Is there a flavor hierarchy in the deconfinement transition of QCD?

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether a flavor hierarchy exists in the QCD deconfinement transition by analyzing lattice QCD susceptibilities and suggests experimental tests for flavor separation in heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of flavor-specific signals in the QCD transition using continuum-extrapolated lattice calculations of higher order susceptibilities.

Findings

Indications of flavor separation during the QCD crossover transition.

Proposed experimental verification via higher order moments of identified particles.

Relevance for LHC heavy ion program at zero baryochemical potential.

Abstract

We present possible indications for flavor separation during the QCD crossover transition based on continuum extrapolated lattice QCD calculations of higher order susceptibilities. We base our findings on flavor specific quantities in the light and strange quark sector. We propose a possible experimental verification of our prediction, based on the measurement of higher order moments of identified particle multiplicities. Since all our calculations are performed at zero baryochemical potential, these results are of particular relevance for the heavy ion program at the LHC.