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arXiv · 2603.04728

The effect of charm quark on the QCD chiral phase diagram

Fei Gao·Yuepeng Guan·Shinya Matsuzaki
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Abstract

We study the influence of charm-quark dynamics on the chiral phase structure of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) using the recently developed miniDSE scheme for the Dyson-Schwinger equations. By comparing the quark and gluon propagators in the $2+1$- and $2+1+1$-flavor setups within the same truncation scheme, we qualify the impact of the charm-quark loop on the QCD phase diagram. Our results show that the charm quark has only a mild effect on the crossover boundary, which remains almost unchanged within the present setup. The most visible effect is a small shift of the critical endpoint (CEP) toward lower baryon chemical potential, by approximately $3\%$. The present result provides a controlled estimate of the charm-loop effect within the same miniDSE truncation. It indicates that heavy-flavor contributions may become relevant when aiming at precision studies of the CEP location.

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Fei Gao, Yuepeng Guan, Shinya Matsuzaki. 2026-03-05. The effect of charm quark on the QCD chiral phase diagram. https://doi.org/10.1103/8r63-rztg

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