On the critical line of 2+1 flavor QCD

We determine the curvature of the (pseudo)critical line of QCD with $n_f$=2+1 staggered fermions at nonzero temperature and quark density, by analytic continuation from imaginary chemical potentials. Monte Carlo simulations are performed adopting the HISQ/tree action discretization, as implemented in the code by the MILC collaboration, suitably modified to include a nonzero imaginary baryon chemical potential. We work on a line of constant physics, as determined in Ref.\cite{Bazavov:2011nk}, adjusting the couplings so as to keep the strange quark mass $m_s$ fixed at its physical value, with a light to strange mass ratio $m_l/m_s=1/20$. In the present investigation we set the chemical potential at the same value for the three quark species, $μ_l=μ_s\equiv μ$. We explore lattices of different spatial extensions, $16^3\times 6$ and $24^3\times 6$, to check for finite size effects, and present results on a $32^3 \times 8$ lattice, to check for finite cut-off effects. We discuss our results for the curvature $κ$ of the critical line at $μ= 0$, which indicate $κ=0.018(4)$, and compare them with previous lattice determinations by alternative methods and with experimental determinations of the freeze-out curve.

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