The quark mass and $\mu$ dependence of the QCD chiral critical point

TL;DR

This study investigates the QCD chiral critical point's dependence on quark mass and chemical potential using lattice simulations and a novel reweighting technique, providing insights into phase transition behavior near physical quark masses.

Contribution

It introduces a new reweighting method based on Taylor expansion to analyze the quark mass and chemical potential dependence of the QCD critical point.

Findings

Binder Cumulants analyzed for different fermion actions

Reweighting accuracy achieved up to ${ m O}(m^2)$ and ${ m O}(\mu^2)$

Results close to physical quark masses

Abstract

In order to study the QCD chiral critical point we investigate Binder Cumulants of the chiral condensate. The results were obtained from simulations of 3 and 2+1 flavors of standard staggered fermions and 3 flavors of p4 improved staggered fermions. The quark masses used are close to the physical quark mass. To extract the dependence on quark mass and chemical potential we apply a new reweighting technique based on a Taylor expansion of the action. The reweighting accuracy is ${\cal O}(m)$ for the standard and ${\cal O}(m^2)$, ${\cal O}(\mu^2)$ for the p4 action.