Strangeness in chiral QCD phase transition

The role of strange quark mass null in chiral QCD phase transition is examined, in the environment of relativistic nuclear collisions. The null term in the effective potential of the O(4) universality class satisfies the stability requirement for a tricritical behaviour and can be used in order to study critical fluctuations in either side of the tricritical point . Comparing the corresponding patterns of density fluctuations in rapidity, one...