Multiple critical end points in magnetized three flavor quark matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong magnetic fields affect the phase structure of three-flavor quark matter, revealing multiple critical endpoints and their impact on phase transitions, especially in the strange quark sector, within a theoretical model.

Contribution

It demonstrates that external magnetic fields induce multiple critical endpoints in the strange quark sector, revealing complex phase transition behavior in magnetized quark matter.

Findings

Multiple critical endpoints appear in the strange sector due to magnetic fields.

Spinodal and binodal regions expand with increasing magnetic field strength.

Deconfinement transition remains a crossover, less affected by magnetic fields.

Abstract

The magnetized phase diagram for three-flavor quark matter is studied within the Polyakov extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. The order parameters are analyzed with special emphasis on the strange quark condensate. We show that the presence of an external magnetic field induces several critical endpoints (CEPs) in the strange sector, which arise due to the multiple phase transitions that the strange quark undergoes. The spinodal and binodal regions of the phase transitions are shown to increase with external magnetic field strength. The influence of strong magnetic fields on the isentropic trajectories around the several CEPs is analyzed. A focusing effect is observed on the region towards the CEPs that are related with the strange quark phase transitions. Compared to the chiral transitions, the deconfinement transition turns out to be less sensitive to the external magnetic field and the crossover nature is preserved over the whole phase diagram.