On the $\beta$- and quark mass dependence of the nuclear transition in the strong coupling regime

Abstract

Lattice QCD in a dual formulation with staggered fermions is well established in the strong coupling limit and allows to perform Monte Carlo simulations at finite baryon chemical potential. We have recently addressed the dependence of the nuclear critical end point as a function of the quark mass $am_q$, and separately as a function of the lattice gauge coupling $\beta$ in the chiral limit. Here we proceed to determine the dependence of the nuclear transition on both, $am_q$ and $\beta$, on isotropic lattices and attempt to pinpoint the critical end point for various $\beta$ where the sign problem is still manageable.