The critical point of lattice QCD on the \mu-T plane

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to analyze lattice QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential, successfully locating the critical endpoint on the phase diagram using dynamical quarks and comparing with existing techniques.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach for studying the QCD phase diagram at finite bc and T, and locates the critical endpoint using dynamical staggered quarks.

Findings

Locates the critical endpoint of QCD on the bc-T plane.

Demonstrates the method's consistency with existing results.

Provides insights into the QCD phase transition at finite density.

Abstract

We propose a method to study lattice QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential. We compare it with direct results and with the Glasgow method by using n_f=4 QCD at Im(\mu)\neq 0. We locate the critical endpoint (E) of QCD on the Re(\mu)-T plane. In this study we use n_f=2+1 dynamical staggered quarks with semi-realistic masses on L_t=4 lattices.