Location of the QCD critical point predicted by holographic Bayesian analysis

¹ Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe & Department of Physics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801-3003, USA
² Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44243, USA
³ Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
⁴ National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
⁵ Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Av. Esperança - Campus Samambaia, CEP 74690-900, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

^* e-mail: hippert@illinois.edu

Published online: 26 June 2024

Abstract

We present results for a Bayesian analysis of the location of the QCD critical point constrained by first-principles lattice QCD results at zero baryon density. We employ a holographic Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton model of the QCD equation of state, capable of reproducing the latest lattice QCD results at zero and finite baryon chemical potential. Our analysis is carried out for two different parametrizations of this model, resulting in confidence intervals for the critical point location that overlap at one sigma. While samples of the prior distribution may not even predict a critical point, or produce critical points spread around a large region of the phase diagram, posterior samples nearly always present a critical point at chemical potentials of μ_Bc ∼ 550 − 630 MeV.