Updates on the Columbia plot and its extended/alternative versions

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent progress in mapping the Columbia plot and its variants, focusing on locating critical points and phase transition orders using different fermion discretizations and extrapolation methods.

Contribution

It presents new investigations into the deconfinement critical point, tricritical masses at imaginary chemical potential, and the chiral phase transition order for Nf=2.

Findings

Progress in locating the deconfinement critical point with Wilson fermions.

Identification of tricritical masses at imaginary chemical potential.

Insights into the order of the chiral phase transition at zero chemical potential.

Abstract

We report on the status of ongoing investigations aiming at locating the deconfinement critical point with standard Wilson fermions and $N_f=2$ flavors towards the continuum limit (standard Columbia plot); locating the tricritical masses at imaginary chemical potential with unimproved staggered fermions at $N_f=2$ (extended Columbia plot); identifying the order of the chiral phase transition at $\mu=0$ for $N_f=2$ via extrapolation from non integer $N_f$ (alternative Columbia plot).