QCD equation of state at nonzero chemical potential: Continuum results with physical quark masses at order μ 2

Abstract

We determine the equation of state of QCD for nonzero chemical potentials via a Taylor expansion of the pressure. The results are obtained for Nf = 2 + 1 flavors of quarks with physical masses, on various lattice spacings. We present results for the pressure, interaction measure, energy density, entropy density, and the speed of sound for small chemical potentials. At low temperatures we compare our results with the Hadron Resonance Gas model. We also express our observables along trajectories of constant entropy over particle number. A simple parameterization is given (the Matlab/Octave script parameterization.m, submitted to the arXiv along with the paper), which can be used to reconstruct the observables as functions of T and μ , or as functions of T and S/N. © 2012 SISSA.