Phase diagram of QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential from lattice simulations with dynamical Wilson quarks

Abstract

We present the first results for lattice QCD at finite temperature $T$ and chemical potential $μ$ with four flavors of Wilson quarks. The calculations are performed using the imaginary chemical potential method at $κ=0$, 0.001, 0.15, 0.165, 0.17 and 0.25, where $κ$ is the hopping parameter, related to the bare quark mass $m$ and lattice spacing $a$ by $κ=1/(2ma+8)$. Such a method allows us to do large scale Monte Carlo simulations at imaginary chemical potential $μ=i μ_I$. By analytic continuation of the data with $μ_I < πT/3$ to real values of the chemical potential, we expect at each $κ\in [0,κ_{chiral}]$, a transition line on the $(μ, T)$ plane, in a region relevant to the search for quark gluon plasma in heavy-ion collision experiments. The transition is first order at small or large quark mass, and becomes a crossover at intermediate quark mass.