The role of the chiral phase transition in modelling the kaon to pion ratio

TL;DR

This paper investigates the influence of the chiral phase transition on the kaon to pion ratio in heavy-ion collisions using an extended NJL model, finding that vector interactions do not significantly alter the ratio's behavior.

Contribution

It introduces the role of the chiral phase transition in modeling the kaon to pion ratio within the SU(3) Polyakov-loop extended NJL framework, highlighting the minimal impact of vector coupling.

Findings

The $K^+/^+$ ratio exhibits a sharp peak near the chiral transition.

The vector coupling $g_V$ has little effect on the ratio's behavior.

The model reproduces the observed peak structure in heavy-ion collision data.

Abstract

A sharp peak in the $K^+/\pi^+$ ratio in relativistic heavy-ion collision is discussed in the framework of the SU(3) Polyakov-loop extended NJL model with vector interaction. In the model, the $K^+/\pi^+$ ratio was calculated along the chiral phase transition line for different values of the vector coupling $g_V$. We showed that the value of the vector coupling had no significant effect on the $K^+/\pi^+$ behaviour.