Exploring QCD Matter at High Baryon Density

J D Brandenburg

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1667/1/012004

Abstract

This contribution presents a brief summary of the recent past efforts to experimentally explore the QCD phase diagram at high baryon chemical potentials through heavy-ion collisions. A few measurements are highlighted to present the current status in the search for a first-order phase transition, for a possible critical endpoint, and for evidence of chiral symmetry restoration. Finally, the outlook for the ongoing beam energy scan II program and future experiments at the FAIR complex are discussed.

Highlights

The Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research (FAIR) is a pioneering new accelerator facility that will provide access to the exotic types of matter present under extreme temperature and density like those that may be found in compact stars, stellar explosions, and in the early universe [1, 2]
One could learn everything about the various phases of nuclear matter from the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD)
QCD calculations, which are applicable for large temperatures (T ) and for low baryon chemical potentials, have indicated that hadronic matter transitions into a deconfined phase of strongly interacting quarks and gluons above a critical temperature (TC ≈ 150 MeV/c) [3, 4, 5]

Summary

Introduction

The Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research (FAIR) is a pioneering new accelerator facility that will provide access to the exotic types of matter present under extreme temperature and density like those that may be found in compact stars, stellar explosions, and in the early universe [1, 2]. QCD calculations, which are applicable for large temperatures (T ) and for low baryon chemical potentials (μB), have indicated that hadronic matter transitions (through an analytic cross-over transition) into a deconfined phase of strongly interacting quarks and gluons above a critical temperature (TC ≈ 150 MeV/c) [3, 4, 5]. One of the early success of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) was the creation of a dense, strongly interacting fluid of deconfined quarks and gluons, called a quarkgluon plasma (QGP) [7, 8, 9, 10].

Results

Conclusion