Phase diagram determination at fivefold nuclear compression

Abstract

In the standard model of particle physics, the strong force is characterized by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). It is commonly understood from QCD properties that hadrons, at sufficiently high temperatures or densities, melt into their constituent quarks, thereby undergoing a deconfinement transition to a new phase of quarks and gluons, often referred to as quark matter or quark-gluon plasma (QGP) \cite{qcd00,qcd01}. Although QGP has been observed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions \cite{qgp1,qgp2}, uncertainties remain about when the onset of deconfinement occurs. After comparing simulations from a reliable hadron and quark relativistic transport model with recent data from the STAR experiment, we determined that the onset of the hadron-quark phase transition occurs at about five times nuclear compression, corresponding to temperature $T\sim$ 112 MeV and baryon chemical potential ${\mu }_B\sim$ 586 MeV, in the nuclear matter phase diagram. This discovery has significant implications for the studies of both the early and present universe \cite{ann2006}, including the fraction of dark matter formed in the early universe \cite{bhd2016,bhf1997,pbh20} and the structure and dynamics of neutron stars and their mergers \cite{nature2020}.

arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures, accepted by PLB

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• Onset of Constituent Quark Number Scaling in Heavy-Ion Collisions at RHIC
• Anti-flow of Mesons in the High Baryon Density Region
• Examination of STAR fixed-target data on directed flow at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 3 and 4.5 GeV
• Exploring hadron-quark phase transition in heavy-ion collisions using particle emission ratios in heavy and light reaction systems
• Violation of NCQ scaling in hadron elliptic flow in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=3.0-7.7GeV
• Probing $\Lambda$ potential via its $v_2$ flow in hypernuclei-induced reaction
• Transport-model investigation of scaling of the number of constituent quarks and the hadronic-partonic transition in Au + Au collisions
• Probing $\Lambda$ potential at high and low densities via \(^3_Λ\)H production in C+C reactions
• Predictions of baryon directed flow in heavy-ion collisions at high baryon density
• Constraining the Phase-Transition EoS using the Energy Dependence of Directed Flow