Interplay between the holographic QCD phase diagram and entanglement entropy

TL;DR

This paper explores how a holographic QCD model with temperature-dependent geometry influences entanglement entropy, revealing detailed phase transition structures and predicting a critical end point at deconfinement, with extensions to chemical potential.

Contribution

It introduces a temperature-dependent holographic QCD model that captures phase transition features and predicts the phase diagram through entanglement entropy analysis, including a critical end point.

Findings

Entanglement entropy reflects thermodynamic phase transitions.

A critical end point is predicted at the deconfinement temperature.

The model extends to include chemical potential effects.

Abstract

In earlier work, we introduced a dynamical Einstein--Maxwell--dilaton model which mimics essential features of QCD (thermodynamics) below and above deconfinement. Although there are some subtle differences in the confining regime of our model as compared to the standard results, we do have a temperature dependent dual metric below $T_c$ as well, allowing for a richer and more realistic holographic modeling of the QCD phase structure. We now discuss how these features leave their imprints on the associated entanglement entropy when a strip region is introduced in the various phases. We uncover an even so rich structure in the entanglement entropy, consistent with the thermodynamical transitions, while again uncloaking some subtleties. Thanks to the temperature dependent confining geometry, we can present an original quantitative prediction for the phase diagram in terms of temperature and strip length, reporting a critical end point at the deconfinement temperature. We also generalize to the case with chemical potential.