Speaker
Prof.
Christian Fischer
(JLU Giessen)
Description
We review results for the phase diagram of QCD, the properties of quarks and gluons
and the resulting properties of strongly interacting matter at finite temperature and
chemical potential. The interplay of two different but related transitions in QCD,
chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement, leads to a rich phenomenology when
external parameters such as quark masses, volume, temperature and chemical potential
are varied. We discuss the progress in this field from a theoretical perspective,
focusing on non-perturbative QCD as encoded in the functional approach via Dyson-Schwinger and Bethe-Salpeter equations. We discuss various aspects associated
with the variation of the quark masses, assess recent results for the QCD phase diagram including the location of a putative critical end-point for $N_f=2+1$ and $N_f=2+1+1$, discuss results for quark spectral functions and summarise aspects of QCD thermodynamics and fluctuations.
Primary author
Prof.
Christian Fischer
(JLU Giessen)
