AdS/QCD critical point via scalar-dilaton coupling

Mapping the phase boundary between ordinary nuclear matter and the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is an important project for both experiment and theory. Of particular interest is the search for the critical point, the value of temperature and baryon chemical potential where the smooth phase transition becomes discontinuous. Anti-de Sitter/Quantum Chromodynamics (AdS/QCD) is an application of the gauge/gravity duality that describes some aspects of nuclear matter, including the QGP. This work is an example of a soft-wall AdS/QCD model, which uses a dilaton field to set the overall energy scale and introduces a black hole to model thermodynamics. We study the chiral phase transition in a model with a coupling between the chiral field and the dilaton, which has been shown to produce a critical point. We study the effect of the quark mass and scalar-dilaton coupling coefficient on the location and existence of the critical point.