Study of the thermodynamic properties of hot QCD matter with the CMS experiment

Abstract

These proceedings summarize recent CMS measurements at the LHC that extract the squared speed of sound, $c_s^2$, of strongly interacting matter at extreme temperatures from the multiplicity dependence of the mean transverse momentum in ultra-central lead-lead (PbPb) collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} = 5.02\ \mathrm{TeV}$. The analysis yields $c_s^2 = 0.241 \pm 0.002\, (\mathrm{stat}) \pm 0.016\, (\mathrm{syst})$ at an effective temperature of $T_{\mathrm{eff}} = 219 \pm 8\, (\mathrm{syst})\,\mathrm{MeV}$, in good agreement with lattice-QCD calculations. Complementary studies in proton-lead (pPb) collisions are also presented to investigate possible quark-gluon plasma signatures in smaller systems.