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Laermann, E.

Publications and source records attributed to Laermann, E..

7 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Skewness and kurtosis of net baryon-number distributions at small values of the baryon chemical potential

In this paper, we present results for the ratios of mean (M B ), variance (σ$2\atop{B}$), skewness (S B ) and kurtosis (κ B ) of net baryon-number fluctuations obtained in lattice QCD calculations with physical values of light and strange quark masses. Using next-to-leading order Taylor expansions in baryon chemical potential we find that qualitative features of these ratios closely resemble the corresponding experimentally measured cumulants ratios of net proton-number fluctuations for beam energies down to √sNN ≥ 19.6 GeV. We show that the difference in cumulant ratios for the mean net baryon-number, M B /σ$2\atop{B}$ = χ$B\atop{1}$ (T, µ B )/χ$B\atop{2}$ (T, µ B ) and the normalized skewness, S B σ B = χ$B\atop{3}$ (T, µB)/χ2 (T, µB ), nat-urally arises in QCD thermodynamics. Moreover, we establish a close relation between skewness and kurtosis ratios, S B σ$B\atop{3}$/M B = χ$B\atop{3}$ (T, µ B )/χ$B\atop{1}$ (T,µ B ) and κ B σ$2\atop{B}$ = χ$B\atop{4}$ (T,μ B )/χ$B\atop{2}$ (T,μ B ), valid at small values of the baryon chemical potential.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Chiral phase structure of three flavor QCD at vanishing baryon number density

In this paper, we investigate the phase structure of QCD with three degenerate quark flavors as a function of the degenerate quark masses at vanishing baryon number density. We use the highly improved staggered quarks on lattices with temporal extent N τ = 6 and perform calculations for six values of quark masses, which in the continuum limit correspond to pion masses in the range 80 MeV ≲ m π ≲ 230 MeV. By analyzing the volume and temperature dependence of the chiral condensate and chiral susceptibility, we find no direct evidence for a first-order phase transition in this range of pion mass values. Finally, relying on the universal scaling behaviors of the chiral observables near an anticipated chiral critical point, we estimate an upper bound for the critical pion mass m c π ≲ 50 MeV, below which a region of first-order chiral phase transition is favored.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

QCD equation of state to O ( μ B 6 ) from lattice QCD

We calculated the QCD equation of state using Taylor expansions that include contributions from up to sixth order in the baryon, strangeness and electric charge chemical potentials. Calculations have been performed with the Highly Improved Staggered Quark action in the temperature range T ϵ [135 MeV , 330 MeV] using up to four different sets of lattice cutoffs corresponding to lattices of size N$3\atop{σ}$ × N τ with aspect ratio N σ /N τ = 4 and N τ = 6-16 . The strange quark mass is tuned to its physical value, and we use two strange to light quark mass ratios m s /m l = 20 and 27, which in the continuum limit correspond to a pion mass of about 160 and 140 MeV, respectively. Sixth-order results for Taylor expansion coefficients are used to estimate truncation errors of the fourth-order expansion. We show that truncation errors are small for baryon chemical potentials less then twice the temperature (μ B ≤ 2T). The fourth-order equation of state thus is suitable for the modeling of dense matter created in heavy ion collisions with center-of-mass energies down to √sNN ~ 12 GeV . We provide a parametrization of basic thermodynamic quantities that can be readily used in hydrodynamic simulation codes. The results on up to sixth-order expansion coefficients of bulk thermodynamics are used for the calculation of lines of constant pressure, energy and entropy densities in the T - μ B plane and are compared with the crossover line for the QCD chiral transition as well as with experimental results on freeze-out parameters in heavy ion collisions. These coefficients also provide estimates for the location of a possible critical point. We argue that results on sixth-order expansion coefficients disfavor the existence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram for μ B /T≤2 and T/T c (μ B = 0) > 0.9 .

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Curvature of the freeze-out line in heavy ion collisions

Here, we calculate the mean and variance of net-baryon number and net-electric charge distributions from quantum chromodynamics (QCD) using a next-to-leading order Taylor expansion in terms of temperature and chemical potentials. Moreover, these expansions with experimental data from STAR and PHENIX are compared, we determine the freeze-out temperature in the limit of vanishing baryon chemical potential, and, for the first time, constrain the curvature of the freeze-out line through a direct comparison between experimental data on net-charge fluctuations and a QCD calculation. We obtain a bound on the curvature coefficient, κ$^f$$_2$<0.011, that is compatible with lattice QCD results on the curvature of the QCD transition line.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗