Chiral criticality and glue dynamics

TL;DR

This paper investigates the impact of glue dynamics on chiral order-parameter fluctuations using the functional renormalization group, revealing that glue dynamics weakly affect chiral fluctuations but strongly influence baryon number fluctuations, relevant for QCD critical point searches.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of how glue dynamics influence fluctuations of the chiral order parameter and baryon number, offering insights into QCD critical phenomena.

Findings

Chiral fluctuations are weakly affected by glue dynamics.

Baryon number fluctuations are sensitive to glue dynamics.

Results have implications for experimental searches for the QCD critical point.

Abstract

The chiral order-parameter $\sigma$ field and its higher-order cumulants of fluctuations are calculated within the functional renormalization group approach. The influence of the glue dynamics on the fluctuations of $\sigma$ field is investigated, and we find that the $\sigma$-field fluctuations are weakly affected by the glue dynamics. This is in sharp contrast to the baryon number fluctuations, which are sensitive to the glue dynamics and involve information of the color confinement. Implications of our calculated results on theoretical and experimental efforts to search for the QCD critical ending point are discussed.