Hosted by: Matthew Sievert

A major experimental theme at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), is the the study of observables that could signal the location and character of the critical endpoint (CEP) – the end point of the first-order coexistence curve in the temperature vs. baryon chemical potential (T, μB) plane of the phase diagram for Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). I will show that Finite-Size Scaling of measurements linked to both the susceptibility and critical fluctuations, lead to scaling functions which provide a potent tool for locating and characterizing the CEP. A recent estimate of the location of the CEP and the associated critical exponents used to assign the order of the transition and its universality class will be presented as well.