One of the main goals of the cold baryonic matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR is to explore the phases of strongly interacting matter at finite temperature and baryon chemical potential μ B . The equation of state of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) at μ B > 0 is an essential input for the CBM experiment, as well as for the beam energy scan in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider(RHIC) experiment. Unfortunately, it is highly nontrivial to calculate the equation of state directly from QCD: numerical Monte Carlo studies on lattice are not useful at finite μ B . Using the method of Taylor expansion in chemical potential, we estimate the equation of state, namely the baryon number density and its contribution to the pressure, for two-flavor QCD at moderate μ B . We also study the quark number susceptibilities. We examine the technicalities associated with summing the Taylor series, and explore a Pade resummation. An examination of the Taylor series can be used to get an estimate of the location of the critical point in μ B , T plane.
Thermal photons as a sensitive probe of $$\alpha $$-cluster in C + Au collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
