Fluctuations of conserved charges in strong magnetic fields from lattice QCD

TL;DR

This study provides the first lattice QCD calculations of second order fluctuations and correlations among conserved charges under strong magnetic fields, revealing significant effects that could aid in detecting magnetic fields in heavy-ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces novel lattice QCD results for fluctuations and correlations of conserved charges in magnetic fields at physical pion mass, relevant for heavy-ion collision experiments.

Findings

Correlations between baryon number and electric charge are significantly affected by magnetic fields.

Magnetic field effects are observable along the QCD transition line.

Results could help probe magnetic fields in heavy-ion collision experiments.

Abstract

We present the first lattice QCD results of the second order fluctuations of and correlations among net baryon number, electric charge and strangeness in (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD in the presence of a background magnetic field with physical pion mass $m_{\pi}=135$ MeV. To mimic the magnetic field strength produced in the early stage of heavy-ion collision experiments we use 6 different values of the magnetic field strength up to $ \sim $10$m_{\pi}^2$. We find that the correlations between baryon number and electric charge along the transition line are substantially affected by magnetic fields in the current $eB$ window, which could be useful for probing the existence of a magnetic field in heavy-ion collision experiments.