Implementation of Cluster expansion for hot QCD matter

TL;DR

This paper develops a cluster expansion equation of state model for hot QCD matter, incorporating medium effects and matching lattice QCD data, to describe the transition from hadronic to quark matter.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Beth-Uhlenbeck formalism-based model that captures both confined and deconfined phases of QCD matter with medium effects.

Findings

Good agreement with lattice QCD thermodynamics data

Smooth crossover transition from hadron to quark matter

Model describes both confined and deconfined phases

Abstract

We present a cluster expansion EoS model for strongly-interacting matter based on the generalized Beth-Uhlenbeck formalism to describe hadrons as bound clusters of quarks. This formalism can describe both confined and deconfined phases. Our emphasis is on the region of vanishing baryon densities, where numerical solutions available from Lattice QCD predict a smooth crossover transition from hadron to quark matter. Medium effects are taken into account as self energies, which are motivated from both perturbative QCD calculations and phenomenological models. Parameters are tuned to Lattice QCD data and result in a good agreement of the thermodynamics.