Phase structure of QCD for heavy quarks

We investigate the nature of the deconfinement and Roberge-Weiss transition in the heavy quark regime for finite real and imaginary chemical potential within the functional approach to continuum QCD. We extract the critical phase boundary between the first-order and crossover regions and also explore tricritical scaling. Our results confirm previous ones from finite volume lattice studies.

Figure 1

The Columbia plot, taken from [10].

Figure 2

The DSE for background field $\overline{A}$.

Figure 3

The DSEs for quark and gluon propagators.

Figure 4

Polyakov-loop potential at $\mu =0$ in the approximately center symmetric phase.

Figure 5

The potential at $T_c$ for quark masses below, at and above $m_c=363\mathrm{MeV}$ for $N_f=1$ and $\mu =0$. The potentials have been shifted arbitrarily for better visibility.

Figure 6

The Polyakov loop $L[A_0]$ for the same quark masses as in Fig. 5 for $N_f=1$ and $\mu =0$.

Figure 7

Polyakov-loop potential at ${\mu }_I/T=1.0$, $T=250\mathrm{MeV}$, $m=320\mathrm{MeV}$.

Figure 8

Absolute value of the Polyakov loop at $m=200\mathrm{MeV}$ for $N_f=2$.

Figure 9

Angle of the Polyakov loop at $m=200\mathrm{MeV}$ for $N_f=2$.

Figure 10

The critical quark mass as a function of $(\mu /T{)}^2$.

Figure 11

The three-dimensional Columbia plot. The quark masses are scaled according to $f:[0,\infty ]\to [0,1]$, $f(m)=1-e^{-m/T}$.