Speaker
Description
Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) at high temperatures and baryon densities is expected to exhibit a rich phase structure. A central open question is whether the QCD phase diagram contains a critical point
at finite baryon density, marking the termination of a first order phase transition line. While lattice QCD has established that the transition from hadronic matter to the quark-gluon plasma is a smooth crossover at
vanishing baryon chemical potential, a variety of theoretical approaches, including effective models, lattice QCD extrapolations, and functional methods allow for the possibility of a critical point at finite baryon density, beyond which the transition becomes first order.
In this talk, I will discuss how heavy-ion collisions at high energies can be used to explore the QCD phase diagram and search for signatures of the QCD critical point. I will focus in particular on how fluctuations and correlations of conserved charges provide a quantitative connection between QCD thermodynamics and experimentally accessible observables, and discuss recent developments in extracting
information about the QCD equation of state and its critical behavior from heavy-ion collision data.