Strangeness neutrality and baryon-strangeness correlations

Abstract:

We derive a simple relation between strangeness neutrality and baryon-strangeness correlations. In heavy-ion collisions, the former is a consequence of quark number conservation of the strong interactions while the latter are sensitive probes of the character of QCD matter. This relation allows us to directly extract baryon-strangeness correlations from the strangeness chemical potential at strangeness neutrality. The explicit calculations are performed within a low-energy theory of QCD with $2+1$ dynamical quark flavors at finite temperature and density. Nonperturbative quark and hadron fluctuations are taken into account within the functional renormalization group. The results show the pronounced sensitivity of baryon-strangeness correlations on the QCD phase transition and the crucial role that strangeness neutrality plays for this observable.

W. Fu, J. M. Pawlowski, and F. Rennecke, “Strangeness neutrality and baryon-strangeness correlations”, Phys. Rev. D 100, 111501 (2019).

https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.111501

Related to Project A01, A02, B03, C05, C06