Probing the QCD chiral cross-over transition in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

AbstractWe argue that by measuring higher moments of the net proton number fluctuations in heavy ion collisions (HIC) one can probe the QCD chiral cross-over transition experimentally. We discuss the properties of fluctuations of the net baryon number in the vicinity of the chiral cross-over transition within the Polyakov loop extended quark-meson model at finite temperature and baryon density. The calculation includes non-perturbative dynamics implemented within the functional renormalization group approach. We find a clear signal for the chiral cross-over transition in the fluctuations of the net baryon number. We address our theoretical findings to experimental data of the STAR Collaboration on energy and centrality dependence of the net proton number fluctuations and their probability distributions in HIC.