Heidelberg 2007 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 123: Eingeladene Vorträge – Theorie II

T 123.3: Talk

Thursday, March 8, 2007, 15:00–15:30, INF 308 Kl. HS

The canonical approach to finite density QCD — •Urs Wenger¹ and Philippe de Forcrand^1,2 — ¹Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zurich, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland — ²Physics Department, TH Unit, CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland

Non-perturbative simulations of QCD at finite baryon density are exceedingly challenging due to the sign problem stemming from the fermionic quark degrees of freedom. We review the difficulties of such simulations and present a canonical approach which is theoretically expected to be superior to standard approaches. We apply the method to the determination of the phase diagram of four-flavour QCD at finite density and finite temperature T. With the canonical approach accurate results for systems containing up to 30 baryons and quark chemical potentials µ/T ∼ 1−1.5 can be obtained. We present our results of the QCD phase diagram, in particular its quark mass dependence, and discuss the implications for the interpretation of results from ongoing heavy-ion collision experiments and for the search of a possible QCD critical point.