Fluctuations, criticality and nonequilibrium effect of the QCD matter

Abstract

The multiplicity distributions of net-baryon number fluctuation in the first-order chiral phase transition associated with the nonequlibrium effect are investigated within the improved Polyakov–Nambu–Jona–Lasinio model. Compared with the idealized first-order transition in equilibrium, the calculation indicates that the density fluctuations in the metastable and unstable regions are more violent, which possibly affects the statistical distributions of density fluctuation in later stage of an expanding system. Signals induced by the first-order phase transition and those from the nonequilibrium effect are discussed in detail, which could be exploited to identify the first-order phase transition. Besides, the critical exponents of the thermodynamic quantities at both the critical end point and spinodal boundary are investigated.