From chemical freezeout to critical conditions in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We compare the statistical thermodynamics of hadron resonance gas with recent LGT results at finite chemical potential. We argue that for $T\le T_c$ the equation of state derived from Monte--Carlo simulations of two quark--flavor QCD at finite chemical potential is consistent with that of a hadron resonance gas when applying the same set of approximations as used in LGT calculations. We indicate the relation of chemical freezeout conditions obtained from a detailed analysis of particle production in heavy ion collisions with the critical conditions required for deconfinement. We argue that the position of a hadron--quark gluon boundary line in temperature chemical potential plane can be determined in terms of the resonance gas model by the condition of fixed energy density.

Comments: Talk given at BUDAPEST'2004 Workshop on 'Hot and Dense Matter in Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics', Budapest, March 24-27, 2004