An augmented QCD phase portrait: Mapping quark-hadron deconfinement for hot, dense, rotating matter under magnetic field

Abstract

The quark-hadron transition that happens in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions is expected to be influenced by the effects of rotation and magnetic field, both present due to the geometry of a generic non-head-on impact. We augment the conventional T–μB planar phase diagram for QCD matter by extending it to a multi-dimensional domain spanned by temperature T, baryon chemical potential μB, external magnetic field B and angular velocity ω. Using two independent approaches, one from a rapid rise in entropy density and another dealing with a dip in the squared speed of sound, we identify deconfinement in the framework of a modified statistical hadronization model. We find that the deconfinement temperature TC(μB,ω,eB) decreases nearly monotonically with increasing μB,ω and eB with the most prominent drop (by nearly 40 to 50 MeV) in TC occurring when all the three quasi-control (via collision energy and centrality) parameters are simultaneously tuned to finite values that are typically achievable in present and upcoming heavy-ion colliders.

Keywords

• QCD phase diagram
• Heavy-ion collisions
• Deconfinement
• Hadronic matter