The phase structure of QCD for heavy quarks

TL;DR

This paper studies the phase transitions in Quantum Chromodynamics with heavy quarks at finite chemical potential, identifying phase boundaries and tricritical points using a continuum functional approach, confirming lattice results.

Contribution

It provides a continuum QCD analysis of the deconfinement and Roberge-Weiss transitions, including phase boundary extraction and tricritical scaling, complementing lattice studies.

Findings

Critical phase boundary between first order and crossover regions identified.

Confirmation of previous lattice results on phase transitions.

Exploration of tricritical scaling behavior.

Abstract

We investigate the nature of the deconfinement and Roberge-Weiss transition in the heavy quark regime for finite real and imaginary chemical potential within the functional approach to continuum QCD. We extract the critical phase boundary between the first order and cross-over regions, and also explore tricritical scaling. Our results confirm previous ones from finite volume lattice studies.