Crossover or First-Order: Impacts of Regularization

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different regularization schemes affect the nature of phase transitions in hot, dense nuclear matter using a symmetry-preserving contact interaction model, highlighting the scheme's impact on results.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of covariant and noncovariant regularization schemes in modeling nuclear matter phase transitions.

Findings

The phase transition character varies significantly with the regularization scheme.

Numerical results depend sensitively on parameter choices.

Regularization scheme impacts the interpretation of the equation of state.

Abstract

The equation of state of hot, dense nuclear matter plays a fundamental role in many areas. However, owing to the nonperturbative nature of strong interactions, a reliable treatment is still under debate. We use a symmetry-preserving treatment of a vector\,$\otimes$\,vector contact interaction to study related issues at nonzero temperature or quark chemical potential, and carefully compare a noncovariant and a covariant regularization scheme. The numerical results show that the character of the phase transition depends sensitively on the regularization scheme and parameter choices.