Susceptibilities of strongly interacting matter in a finite volume

Abstract

We investigate possible finite-volume effects on baryon number susceptibilities of strongly interacting matter. Assuming that a hadronic and a deconfined phase both contribute to the thermodynamic state of a finite system due to fluctuations, it is found that the resulting shapes of the net-baryon number distributions deviate significantly from the infinite volume limit for a given temperature $T$ and baryochemical potential $\mu_B$. In particular, the constraint on color-singletness for the finite quark-gluon phase contribution leads to a change of the temperature dependence of the susceptibilities in finite volumes. According to the model, the finite-volume effect depends qualitatively on the value of $\mu_B$.