Phase diagram and critical end point for strongly interacting quarks

Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Apr 29;106(17):172301. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.172301. Epub 2011 Apr 28.

Abstract

We introduce a method based on chiral susceptibility, which enables one to draw a phase diagram in the chemical-potential-temperature plane for strongly interacting quarks whose interactions are described by any reasonable gap equation, even if the diagrammatic content of the quark-gluon vertex is unknown. We locate a critical end point at (μ(E),T(E))∼(1.0,0.9)T(c), where T(c) is the critical temperature for chiral-symmetry restoration at μ=0, and find that a domain of phase coexistence opens at the critical end point whose area increases as a confinement length scale grows.