Chiral transition in a finite system and possible use of finite size scaling in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We investigate finite-size effects on the chiral phase diagram of strong interactions within the linear sigma model coupled to quarks. We estimate the modification of the pseudocritical transition line and isentropic trajectories for sizes that are representative of the systems created in relativistic heavy ion collision experiments. The corrections are clearly non-negligible and might significantly affect signatures of the chiral critical endpoint based on estimates for an infinite system. We argue that a finite-size scaling analysis should be tested in the process of data analysis of the Beam Energy Scan program at RHIC and in future experiments at FAIR-GSI, through the use of full scaling plots and a chi-squared method as tools for searching the critical endpoint.