The QCD Critical End Point Under Strong Magnetic Fields

Understand

We use the three-flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, which includes strangeness and quark physical masses in the mean field approximation, to investigate the influence of strong magnetic fields on the QCD phase diagram covering the whole $T-\mu$ plane.

• It is found that the size of the first order transition line increases as the field strength increases so that a larger coexistence region for hadronic and quark matter should be expected for strong magnetic fields.
• The location of the critical end point is also affected by the presence of magnetic fields which invariably increase the temperature value at which the first order line terminates.
• On the other hand, the critical end point chemical potential value displays a subtle oscillation around the B=0 value for magnetic fields within the $10^{17}-10^{20} \, {\rm G}$ range.