https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-025-02085-x
Regular Article
Quark mass dependence of a QCD critical point and structure of the Columbia plot
1
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, 35392, Giessen, Germany
2
Helmholtz Forschungsakademie Hessen für FAIR (HFHF), GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Campus Gießen, 35392, Giessen, Germany
a
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Received:
6
August
2025
Accepted:
27
November
2025
Published online:
5
December
2025
Abstract
We study the quark-mass dependence of the QCD critical point at varying bare up/down quark masses with fixed strange quark mass. We explore the corresponding second-order critical surface in the three-dimensional Columbia plot and study the extension of the associated crossover hyperplane at real and imaginary baryon chemical potential. To this end, we employ a by now well-tested combination of lattice Yang–Mills theory and a (truncated) version of Dyson–Schwinger equations at 
quark flavours. We find evidence for a positive curvature of the second-order surface at (large) real chemical potential and a crossover region for imaginary chemical potential. Our results support the notion of a tricritical point at finite chemical potential in the chiral limit.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
