Scaling of the Surface Free Energy as a Probe of the QCD Critical Region
The QCD phase diagram is expected to have a critical point that separates the crossover and first-order transition lines. A realistic model that incorporates phase boundary effects is essential for heavy ion simulations to isolate the experimental signatures of a critical point. We discuss how to construct such an equation of state, and study its critical behavior. The effect of the coefficient of surface energy on the size of the critical region is investigated. We found that with this construction and with the chosen background equation of state, the temperature must be within one percent of its critical value to observe the critical exponents. This makes it doubtful that the critical exponents can be measured in heavy ion collisions, though it may still be feasible to observe signatures of a first-order phase transition. The method presented here is general and can be utilized with any given equation of state to test the viability of observing critical exponents in experiments.