Speaker
Olaf Kaczmarek
(University of Bielefeld)
Description
We discuss recent progress in lattice QCD studies on various aspects involving
strange and heavy quarks. Appropriate combinations of conserved net strange and
net charm fluctuations and their correlations with other conserved charges
provide evidence that in the hadronic phase so far
unobserved hadrons contribute to the thermodynamics and need to be included in
hadron resonance gas models.
In the strange sector this leads to significant reductions of the chemical
freeze-out temperature of strange hadrons.
We have found that a description of the thermodynamics of open strange and open
charm degrees of freedom in terms of an uncorrelated hadron gas is valid only
up to temperatures close to the chiral crossover temperature. This suggests
that in addition to light and strange hadrons also open charm hadrons start to
dissolve already close to the chiral crossover.
Further indications that open charm mesons start to melt in the vicinity of
Tc is obtained from an analysis of screening masses, while in the charmonium
sector these screening masses show a behavior compatible with a sequential
melting pattern.
Author
Olaf Kaczmarek
(University of Bielefeld)
