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# Theory of pattern-formation of metallic microparticles in poorly conducting liquid

## Abstract

We develop continuum theory of self-assembly and pattern formation in metallic microparticles immersed in a poorly conducting liquid in DC electric field. The theory is formulated in terms of two conservation laws for the densities of immobile particles (precipitate) and bouncing particles (gas) coupled to the Navier-Stokes equation for the liquid. This theory successfully reproduces correct topology of the phase diagram and primary patterns observed in the experiment \[Sapozhnikov et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 114301 (2003)\]: static crystals and honeycombs and dynamic pulsating rings and rotating multi-petal vortices.

Electromagnetic manipulation and assembly of small particles in electrolytes has constitutes one of the great hopes for nanotechnology hayward  and new generation of microfluidic devices chang . Many industrial technologies face the challenge of handling such single- or multi-component micro and nano- size ensembles. The dynamics of conducting microparticles in electric field in the air was studied in ar1 ; ar2 . Phase transitions and clustering instability of the electrostatically driven conducting microparticles were found. In our recent work we reported new dynamic phenomena occurring with microparticles in poorly conducting liquid subject to strong electric field (up to 20 kV/cm) sap . It was shown that small metallic particles immersed in a toluene-ethanol mixture in DC electric field form a rich variety of novel phases. These phases include static honeycombs and two-dimensional crystals; dynamic multi-petal vortices and pulsating rings. The phenomena were attributed to interaction between particles and electro-hydrodynamic (EHD) flows.

In this Letter we develop theory of pattern formation and self-assembly of metallic microparticles in a poorly conducting liquid placed between two horizontal planar electrodes. The theory is formulated in terms of two depth-averaged conservation laws for the densities of immobile particles (precipitate) and bouncing particles (gas) coupled to the Navier-Stokes equation for vertical component of velocity of the liquid $`v_z`$, whereas horizontal velocity $`v_{}`$ is obtained from the continuity condition. This theory successfully reproduces topology of the phase diagram and primary patterns observed in the experiment: static crystals and honeycombs and dynamic pulsating rings and vortices sap . In the framework of our theory we demonstrate that the rotation of clusters is the result of a symmetry-breaking instability leading to formation of the travelling wave at the cluster perimeter.

Model. Schematics of experimental setting is shown in inset of Figure 1. Our studies show that two major control parameters are the potential difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$ which determines average electric field $`E=\mathrm{\Delta }U/d`$, $`d`$ is the spacing between electrodes, and the concentration $`c`$ of the additive (e.g. ethanol) which characterizes the conductivity of the liquid. Following the analysis of Ref. ar2 , we describe the evolution of particulate by the number density of precipitate $`\rho _p(𝐫,t)`$ and bouncing particles (or gas) $`\rho _g(𝐫,t)`$, where $`𝐫=(x,y)`$ are horizontal coordinates. All the quantities are averaged over the vertical coordinate $`z`$. Since the total number of particles $`N=(\rho _p+\rho _g)𝑑x𝑑y`$ is conserved, the evolution of the particulate is described by the conservation laws

$`_t\rho _p=𝐉_p+f,_t\rho _g=𝐉_gf`$ (1)
Here $`J_{p,g}`$ are the mass fluxes of precipitate and gas respectively and the function $`f`$ describes gas/precipitate conversion which depends on $`\rho _{p,g}`$, electric field $`E`$ and local concentration $`c`$. The fluxes can be written as:

$$𝐉_{p,g}=D_{p,g}\rho _{p,g}+\alpha _{p,g}(E)𝐯_{}\rho _{p,g}(1\beta (E)\rho _{p,g})$$
(2)
where $`D_{p,g}`$ are precipitate/gas diffusivities. The last term, describing particles advection by fluid, is reminiscent of Richardson-Zaki relation for drag force frequently used in the engineering literature richardson . The factor $`(1\beta (E)\rho _{p,g})`$ describes saturation of the flux at large particle densities $`\rho 1/\beta `$. Experiments show that at the onset of motion the maximum density in the patterns such as honeycombs is below sub-monolayer coverage whereas for large values of $`E`$ the particles form multi-layered structures. Thus $`\beta `$ should decrease with the increase of $`E`$. According to the Richardson-Zaki relation, the coefficients $`\alpha _{g,p}`$ decrease with the increase of $`\rho _{g,p}`$ (i.e. void fraction). In order to mimic this effect on qualitative level we assumed that $`\alpha _{g,p}`$ decreases with the increase of $`E`$ (due to the increase of maximum density $`\rho 1/\beta `$ with $`E`$). Since the gas is mostly concentrated near the upper electrode and the precipitate near the bottom, gas and precipitate are advected in opposite directions, i.e. the transport coefficients $`\alpha _{p,g}`$ have opposite signs. Since gas is more mobile than precipitate, we set $`D_gD_p`$. In the limit $`D_g\mathrm{}`$ and for $`\alpha _{p,g}=0`$ one recovers the description of Ref. ar2 .

We assume that vertical vorticity of the liquid $`\mathrm{\Omega }_z=_xv_y_yv_x`$ is small in comparison with the in-plane vorticity. This assumption is justified by the experimental observation that toroidal vortices create no or very small horizontal rotation. From $`\mathrm{\Omega }_z=0`$ one obtains

$$𝐯_{}=\varphi $$
(3)
where $`\varphi `$ is a “quasipotential”. Substituting Eq. (3) into the continuity equation $`𝐯=0`$ one expresses the quasipotential through vertical velocity

$$^2\varphi =_zv_z$$
(4)
The vertical velocity $`v_z`$ can be obtained form the corresponding Navier-Stokes equation

$$\rho _0(_tv_z+𝐯v_z)=\nu ^2v_z_zp+E_zq$$
(5)
where $`\rho _0`$ is the density of liquid (we set $`\rho _0=1`$), $`\nu `$ is the viscosity, $`p`$ is the pressure, and $`q`$ is the charge density. The last term describes electric force acting on charged liquid. In order to average Eqs. (4),(5) over the thickness of the cell $`0<z<d`$, we assume that $`v_z`$ is symmetric with respect to $`d/2`$ and $`v_{}`$ is antisymmetric. Then after the averaging and taking into account that $`_zv_z=0`$ at $`z=0,d`$ one obtains

$$_tV=\nu ^2V\zeta V\mathrm{\Delta }p+E_zq$$
(6)
where $`V=d^1_0^dv_z𝑑z`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }p=p(d)p(0)`$. Term $`\zeta V`$ accounts for a small dissipation due to friction between liquid, particles, and the walls of container. Using the symmetry condition and integrating Eq. (4) over the lower half of the cell ($`0<z<d/2`$) one obtains

$$^2\mathrm{\Phi }=a_0V$$
(7)
where the constant $`a_0O(1)`$ can be scaled away and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is averaged $`\varphi `$. The volume charge density $`qc`$ is negative and proportional to additive concentration $`c`$, vertical component of the electric field $`E_z`$ depends on $`E`$ and the local density of particles, $`\rho _p+\rho _g`$. Since the increase in the amount of conducting particles decreases the effective spacing between the electrodes and, therefore, increases the apparent electric field, one obtains

$$E_z\frac{E}{1(\rho _p+\rho _g)/s}E+E(\rho _p+\rho _g)/s$$
(8)
where constant $`sd/r_0`$, $`r_0`$ is particle diameter. After applying the divergence operator to the Navier-Stokes equation one finds that the pressure itself is a functional of $`Eq`$. In the most general form it can be written as $`\mathrm{\Delta }p=K(rr^{})E_zq𝑑r^{}`$. The kernel has property $`K𝑑r^{}=1`$ since uniform force distribution does not create net flow of the liquid. The precise form of the kernel is not available on our level of description. We used the following kernel expressed by its Fourier transform

$$\widehat{K}(k)=\mathrm{exp}[i\mathrm{𝐤𝐫}]K(r)𝑑r=\mathrm{exp}[\kappa (E)k^2k^4d_0^4]$$
(9)
This form of the kernel is justified by the spatial isotropy (dependence of $`k^2`$ only), normalization ($`\widehat{K}(0)=K(r^{})𝑑r^{}=1`$) and locality conditions (rapid decays for $`k>1/d_0`$, where $`d_0`$ is the characteristic length of the order of electrodes separation). The field dependent factor $`\kappa (E)`$ describes experimentally observed transitions from honeycombs ($`\kappa <0`$) at small fields to coalescence and attraction of toroidal vortices ($`\kappa >0`$) for larger fields. After combining Eqs. (6),(8) and (9) one obtains

$$_tV=\nu ^2V\zeta VcEK_1(rr^{})(\rho _p+\rho _g)𝑑r^{}$$
(10)
where the Fourier transform $`\widehat{K}_1=1\mathrm{exp}[\kappa (E)k^2k^4d_0^4]`$. We also scaled away $`s`$.

The function $`f`$ has a different structure for low concentrations ($`c1`$) and high concentrations. For $`c0`$ this function coincides with that derived in Ref. ar2 :

$$f_1=(\rho _p\rho _{})\times \{\begin{array}{ccc}\rho _p,\hfill & \text{if }\hfill & 0\rho _p\rho _{}\hfill \\ C_{}\rho _g(1\rho _p),\hfill & \text{if }\hfill & \rho _{}\rho _p1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
where constants $`C_{}O(1)`$ and $`\rho _{}(E)`$ are discussed in Ref. ar2 . For higher values of $`c`$ the experiment suggests that both $`\rho _g`$ and $`\rho _p`$ tend to some equilibrium value which is determined by the field $`E`$. In the linear approximation it can be written as

$$f_2=cC_2(\rho _g\mu (E,q)\rho _p)$$
(12)
Here $`C_2`$ characterizes relaxation time towards the equilibrium. In steady-state $`f_2`$ enforces the relation between the densities $`\rho _g/\rho _p\mu `$. In turn, $`\mu `$ depends on the field and local charge distribution $`q`$. We set for simplicity $`q=const`$. However, convective flows will affect the ions density, which will shift the gas/precipitate equilibrium, see sap . This effect can be modelled by including the dependence of $`\mu `$ on $`V`$. We used the following expression $`\mu =\mu _0(E)(\mathrm{tanh}(\mu _1\text{sign}(E)V)+1)`$. The particular form of this function appears to be not relevant. It incorporates the observation that gas concentration is suppressed by rising flows for $`E<0`$ due to excess of negative ions and vise versa. Finally, we used hybrid form for $`f`$ valid for arbitrary $`c`$

$$f=f_2+\mathrm{exp}[c/c_0]f_1$$
(13)
where $`c_0`$ is some ”crossover” concentration.

Stability of homogeneous precipitate. In the limit of small electric fields $`E`$ we can set $`\mu 0`$, i.e. equilibrium gas density $`\rho _g0`$. Then the stability of homogeneous precipitate (i.e. homogeneous “Wigner” crystal state in experiment) $`\rho _p=\overline{\rho }=const`$ can be readily performed because the equation for $`\rho _g`$ splits off and the analysis is reduced to Eq. (10) and Eq. (1) for $`\rho _p`$. We will focus on the case of high concentration $`cc_0`$ and neglect the last term in Eq. (13) (case of $`c=0`$ was considered in Ref. ar2 ). In the linear order for periodic perturbations $`V,\rho _p\mathrm{exp}[\lambda t+ikx]`$ Eqs. (1), (10) yield

$`\lambda V`$ $`=`$ $`(\nu k^2+\zeta )V+E(1\mathrm{exp}[\kappa (E)k^2k^4d_0^4])\rho _p`$
$`\lambda \rho _p`$ $`=`$ $`D_pk^2\rho _p\alpha _p\beta \overline{\rho }(1\beta \overline{\rho })V`$ (14)
The growth rate $`\lambda (k)`$ depends on the sign of the field $`E`$, see Figure 1. For negative $`E`$ and $`\kappa <0`$ in a certain parameter range $`\lambda `$ is positive in a narrow band near the optimal wavenumber $`k_0`$, which is the hallmark of so-called short-wave instability. In this regime our solution indicates formation of stable honeycomb lattice with the scale determined by $`k_0`$. For the same parameters, but for $`E>0`$ the homogeneous state $`\rho _p=\overline{\rho }`$ is stable (dashed line on Figure 1). This observation is consistent with experimental fact that field reversal transforms honeycomb to homogeneous precipitate and vise versa. With the increase of $`E`$ and $`\kappa `$ the left edge of the unstable band of $`\lambda (k)`$ crosses zero and long-wave instability ensues. This regime corresponds to the coalescence of clusters.

Qualitative phase diagram is shown in Figure 2. The positions of transition lines are approximate because field dependence of $`\kappa `$, $`\mu _0`$, $`\beta `$ is not available at the moment. To describe the observed phenomenology, we only assumed that $`\kappa `$, $`\mu _0`$, $`\rho _{}`$ monotonically increase with the increase of $`E`$, and the functions $`\alpha _{g,p},\beta `$ decreases ($`1/\beta `$ is limiting density of the t-vortex which increases with the increase of $`E`$). The line $`\lambda =0`$ for short-wavelength instability for $`E<0`$ depicts the transition to honeycombs. The transition from honeycombs to pulsating rings is identified as a transition from shortwave to long-wave instability, which roughly coincides with $`\kappa (E)=0`$. This transition is associated with an overall increase of gas concentration (increase of $`\mu (E)`$) and decrease of $`\beta `$ (increase of maximum density of $`\rho _p`$). The transition from static clusters to dynamic structures and honeycombs occurs approximately with the increase of concentration $`c`$ at $`c=c_0`$. For $`E>0`$ the transition from stable precipitate to “down t-vortices” is approximately given by $`\kappa (E)=0`$. Note that in this case there is no distinction between “immobile” and “Wigner crystal” state because our model does not take into account dry friction and adhesion of particles to the bottom.

Numerical solution of Eqs. (10),(1) was performed by quasi-spectral method based on Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT). Typically 256$`\times `$256 FFT harmonics in periodic boundary conditions were used. For $`c>c_0`$, $`E<0`$ and $`\kappa <0`$ corresponding to the case of short-wavelength instability we observed spontaneous formation of honeycomb lattice from random initial conditions, see Figure 3. For the same parameters but $`E>0`$ the homogeneous state $`\rho _p=const`$ (Wigner crystal) was stable. With the increase of $`E`$ and for $`\kappa >0`$ (i.e. in the case of long-wavelength instability) we observed the transition from honeycombs/Wigner crystals to the regime of cluster attraction and coalescence. In this case EHD flows accelerate coarsening process of t-vortices dramatically. The inter-vortex distance $`R`$ in this regime vs time is shown in Figure 1, inset. The fitting gives approximately $`R(t_0t)^{1/2}`$. It is qualitatively consistent with experimental data. This behavior can be anticipated from solution of Eq. (7). In 2D t-vortices generate localized distributions of vertical velocity $`V`$, and, therefore, logarithmic quasipotentials $`\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{log}|𝐫𝐫_i|`$, $`r_i`$ is the vortex position. Thus, the asymptotic horizontal velocity will decay as $`V_{}1/|𝐫𝐫_i|`$ leading to $`R(t_0t)^{1/2}`$.

In the course of coalescence the vortices grow and become unstable, producing pulsating rings for $`E<0`$ (Figure 4) and rotating objects for $`E>0`$ (Figure 5). We believe that the instability in both cases is caused by the same mechanism: dynamic coupling between particles density and vertical flows described by the function $`f`$. However, for $`E<0`$, i.e for utv, the vortices are primarily built of a low-mobile precipitate phase with a small amount of gas above them. The instability occurs in the bulk of the vortex, resulting in formation and breaking up of ”gas bubbles” inside the precipitate. For $`E>0`$ the vortices are formed by a mobile gas phase with a small content of precipitate. The instability occurs at the vortex edge yielding counter-propagating clock/anticlock waves of shape deformation. Eventually only one wave survives, creating the effect of rotation.

In our experiments we observed also multi-petal vortices exhibiting almost solid-state rotation. These multi-petal vortices obviously generate horizontal flow of the liquid which is neglected in the framework of our theory. We believe that vertical vorticity is in fact the consequence rather than the reason of rotation. It is likely that the vortex shape instability present in our model eventually triggers rotation of surrounding fluid and generates vertical vorticity. Explicit incorporation of the vertical vorticity will lead to substantial technical difficulties and likely will not change the qualitative features.

In conclusion, we develop phenomenological continuum theory of pattern formation and self-assembly of metallic microparticles immersed in a poorly conducting liquid. This theory reproduces primary patterns observed in the experiment, and leads to an interesting prediction of the relation of rotation with the vortex edge instability. The parameters of the model can be extracted from molecular dynamics simulations and generalization of “leaky dielectric model” leaky  and validated by experiments. We are grateful to B. Meerson, Y. Tolmachev and W.-K. Kwok for useful discussions. This research was supported by the US DOE, grant W-31-109-ENG-38.


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# Inverted Hierarchical Model of Neutrino Masses Revisited

## Abstract

In this letter we highlight the inherent problems associated with the inverted hierarchical model of neutrinos with only three generations and then suggest possible solutions within the MSSM. We discuss the new parametrization of the solar mixing angle which can identify the light side and dark side of the data. We then argue whether the inverted hierarchical neutrino mass matrix can explain the large mixing angle (LMA) MSW solution of the solar neutrino anomaly in the presence of an appropriate texture of charged lepton mass matrix. In a model independent way we explore such specific form of the charged lepton mass matrix having a special structure in 1-2 block. The contribution to the solar mass splitting arising out of radiative corrections in MSSM, is calculated, thus making the model stable under radiative corrections.

Introduction: The data on solar neutrino oscillation has been traditionally shown on the $`(\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12},\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2)`$ plane but a new parametrization on the $`(\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{12},\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2)`$ plane with the usual sign convention $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=m_2^2m_1^2>0`$ has been recently suggested to explain the solar data. In this new parametrization the most recent result from the SNO-Superkamiokande favours the “ light side”, $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{12}<1`$, and disfavours the “dark side”, $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{12}>1`$. It has also imposed certain restrictions on the validity of the proposed neutrino mass models which are otherwise allowed in the old parametrization. This can be understood from the definition of leptonic mixing matrix $`V_{MNS}`$ where $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{12}=|V_{e2}|^2/|V_{e1}|^2<1`$ implies $`|V_{e2}|<|V_{e1}|`$ for the usual sign convention $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=m_2^2m_1^2>0`$, whereas such restriction does not exist in the definition of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12}=4|V_{e1}|^2|V_{e2}|^2`$.

For our analysis in the present work, we take here the most general form of texture of the inverted neutrino masses, which is assumed to be valid at high scale

$$m_{LL}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\delta & 1& 1\\ 1& ϵ_1& ϵ_2\\ 1& ϵ_2& ϵ_1\end{array}\right)m_0,$$
(1)
Here we consider two possibilities. In case(i) we take $`\delta =ϵ_1=ϵ_2=0`$, leading to $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=0`$. This represents the case of perfect $`L_eL_\mu L_\tau `$ symmetry. In case(ii) we have $`\delta ϵ_1ϵ_2\lambda ^3`$, leading to $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2>0`$. The quantum radiative corrections may modify the above two cases and their low-energy values are - case(i): $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{sol}^2=\delta _{rad}`$ when an appropriate charged lepton mass matrix is taken into consideration ; and case(ii): $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{sol}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2+\delta _{rad}`$. In MSSM the radiative correction term $`\delta _{rad}`$ is a negative quantity and therefore, it will lead to $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{12}>1`$ in case (i). But in case (ii) if $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2>\delta _{rad}`$, the radiative stability will still be maintained with $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{21}<1`$. This point will be further examined in present work.

Formalism and Results: Expressing $`m_{LL}`$ in the basis where the charged lepton mass matrix is diagonal, we have $`m_{LL}^{}=V_{eL}m_{LL}V_{eL}^T,m_{LL}^{diag}=V_{\nu L}^{}m_{LL}^{}V_{\nu L}^T,`$ where $`V_{MNS}=V_{\nu L}^{}`$, and $`V_{eL}`$ is the diagonalizing matrix for charged lepton mass matrix. The neutrino flavour eigenstate $`\nu _f`$ is related to the mass eigenstate $`\nu _i`$ by the relation $`\nu _f=V_{fi}\nu _i`$ and the MNS mixing matrix is given by $`V_{fi}`$ where $`f=\tau ,\mu ,e`$ and $`i=1,2,3`$. We take the usual convention of the neutrino mass eigenvalues $`|m_{\nu 1}|<|m_{\nu 2}|`$, and this fixes the ordering of the first two columns of the leptonic mixing matrix $`V_{MNS}`$. We present here only one simple case of the left-handed Majorana neutrino mass matrix having $`\delta =0,ϵ_2=0,ϵ_1=\lambda ^3`$ for our demonstration in the present analysis, $`m_{LL}`$ with $`m_0=0.05eV`$ in Eq.(1); and the neutrino mass eigenvalues $`m_i=(1.4089,1.4195,0.01065)m_0`$, $`i=1,2,3`$, leading to the neutrino mass splittings $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=7.4952\times 10^5eV^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{23}^2=5.0335\times 10^3eV^2`$. For our choice of the diagonal charged lepton mass matrix, the MNS mixing matrix is expressed as

$$V_{MNS}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}+\alpha & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\alpha & 0\\ \frac{1}{2}\beta & (\frac{1}{2}+\beta )& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\\ \frac{1}{2}\beta & (\frac{1}{2}+\beta )& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\end{array}\right)$$

where $`\alpha =0.001335`$ and $`\beta =0.00094`$. Here $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{12}=\frac{|\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\alpha |^2}{|\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}+\alpha |^2}<1`$ for the usual convention $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2>0`$. In case of exact $`L_eL_\mu L_\tau `$ symmetry as in case (i) where $`\delta =ϵ_{1,2}=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=0`$, and the above $`V_{MNS}`$ takes the form with $`\alpha =0`$ and $`\beta =0`$. In the above example the $`V_{MNS}(=V_{\nu L}^{})`$ obtained from the $`m_{LL}`$ alone fails to explain the LMA MSW solution as it predicts the maximal solar mixings, and any small deviation in the texture of $`m_{LL}`$ will hardly affect the maximal value of $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{12}`$. The last hope is that there could be a significant negative contribution to $`\theta _{12}`$ from $`V_{eL}`$ obtained from the diagonalisation of the charged lepton mass matrix $`m_l`$ having special structure in 1-2 block. We wish to examine here how $`\theta _{12}=(\theta _{12}^\nu \theta _{12}^e)`$ can resolve the LMA MSW solar neutrino mixing scenario.

In a model independent way we parametrize the charged lepton mixing $`V_{eL}`$ as

$$V_{eL}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\overline{c}_{12}& \overline{s}_{12}& 0\\ \overline{s}_{12}& \overline{c}_{12}& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)$$
(2)
This gives a special form in the 1-2 block. We can reconstruct the symmetric charged lepton mass matrix using Eq.(2) from the relation, $`m_l=V_{eL}^{}m_l^{diag}V_{eR},`$ where we consider $`V_{eL}=V_{eR}`$ for symmetric matrix. The MNS mixing matrix $`V_{MNS}=V_{eL}V_{\nu L}^{}`$ is now calculated as

$$\left(\begin{array}{ccc}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}+\alpha )\overline{c}_{12}+(\frac{1}{2}\beta )\overline{s}_{12}& (\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\alpha )\overline{c}_{12}(\frac{1}{2}+\beta )\overline{s}_{12}& \frac{\overline{s}_{12}}{\sqrt{2}}\\ (\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}+\alpha )\overline{s}_{12}+(\frac{1}{2}\beta )\overline{c}_{12}& (\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\alpha )\overline{s}_{12}(\frac{1}{2}+\beta )\overline{c}_{12}& \frac{\overline{c}_{12}}{\sqrt{2}}\\ \frac{1}{2}\beta & (\frac{1}{2}+\beta )& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\end{array}\right)$$
(3)
Now we obtain the following parameters

$$\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{21}=\frac{|(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\overline{c}_{12}\frac{1}{2}\overline{s}_{12})\alpha (\overline{c}_{12}+\overline{s}_{12})|^2}{|(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\overline{c}_{12}+\frac{1}{2}\overline{s}_{12})+\alpha (\overline{c}_{12}\overline{s}_{12})|^2},$$

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}=\overline{c}_{12}^2,|V_{e3}|=|\frac{\overline{s}_{12}}{\sqrt{2}}|,|m_{ee}||m_1|\sqrt{2}\overline{s}_{12}\overline{c}_{12}.$$

If $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}=1\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}`$, is the small deviation from the completely maximal value of the atmospheric neutrino mixings, then the above relations take the following new forms:

$$\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{21}=|1\sqrt{8\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}}+3\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}|$$
(4)
$$|V_{e3}|=\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}}{2}},|m_{ee}|=|m_1|\sqrt{2\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}}$$
(5)
Where $`\alpha `$ in Eq.(4)has been suppressed as it contributes insignificantly to the solar mixing.

Table-1: Few reprsentative cases for the values of the quantities in Eqs.(4) and (5) obtained for the different values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}`$ as input.

| Case | $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}`$ | $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}`$ | $`|V_{e3}|`$ | $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{21}`$ | $`|m_{ee}|eV`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| I | .02 | 0.98 | 0.10 | 0.66 | 0.014 |
| II | .04 | 0.96 | 0.14 | 0.55 | 0.020 |
| III | .05 | 0.95 | 0.16 | 0.52 | 0.022 |
| IV | .06 | 0.94 | 0.17 | 0.49 | 0.024 |

The Table-1 shows that in Cases II and III, solar mixings together with solar mass splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2=7.49\times 10^5`$ $`eV^2`$ are in excellent agreement with the best fit $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{21}=0.56`$ obtained in KamLand experiment. The values of $`|V_{e3}|`$ are also in accord with the CHOOZ experiment.

Finally we check the stability of the neutrino mass matrix under RGEs. Following the standard procedure we express $`m_{LL}`$ in terms of $`K`$, the coefficient of the dimension five neutrino mass operator in a scale-dependent manner $`m_{LL}(t)=v_u^2(t)K(t)`$ where $`t=ln(\mu )`$ and $`v_u(t)`$ is the scale-dependent vacuum expectation value (VEV) $`v_u=v_0\mathrm{sin}\beta `$, $`v_0=174GeV`$. In the basis where the charged lepton mass matrix is made diagonal, we can write the above expression as $`m_{LL}^{}(t)=v_u^2(t)K^{}(t)`$ where $`K^{}(t)=V_{eL}K(t)V_{eL}^T`$ is the coefficient of the dimension five neutrino mass operators in the basis where the charged lepton mass matrix is diagonal. The approximate analytical solution of the relevant RGEs in MSSM, is given by the following form

$$m_{LL}^{}(t_0)=R.diag(1,1,\alpha ).m_{LL}^{}(t_u).diag(1,1,\alpha )$$
(6)
We have the expressions $`R=e^{\frac{9}{10}I_{g_1}(t_0)}e^{\frac{9}{2}I_{g_2}(t_0)}1`$, $`\alpha =e^{t_\tau (t_0)}=1r`$ where the approximate solution is

$$r=1(m_t/M_u)^{(1+\mathrm{tan}^2\beta )(m_\tau /2\sqrt{2}\pi v)^2}$$

with $`v=245.4GeV`$. The low-energy solar mass splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{sol}^2`$ can be expressed in terms of high energy solar mass splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2`$ and the radiative correction effect $`\delta _{rad}`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{sol}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2+\delta _{rad},\delta _{rad}=4r|m_1|^2\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}\mathrm{cos}2\theta _{21}.$$
(7)
In MSSM the quantity $`r`$ is positive and thus we have $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{sol}^2<\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2`$. For example, We obtain the numerical values $`\delta _{rad}=0.96\times 10^5eV^2`$ corresponding to the CaseIII in Table-1. The mass ratio $`|m_2|/|m_1|`$ also decreases with energy scale. The model is stable under radiative corrections.


text:
# Thermodynamics at Non-Zero Baryon Number Density: A Comparison of Lattice and Hadron Resonance Gas Model Calculations

## 1 Introduction

While the thermodynamics of strongly interacting matter at vanishing baryon number density or chemical potential has been studied  in lattice calculations for quite some time, the first investigations of the equation of state at non-vanishing quark chemical potential ($`\mu _q`$) have started only recently . These studies of bulk thermodynamics have been performed with different lattice actions and also have used different methods (exact matrix inversion  or Taylor expansion ) to extend previous calculations performed at $`\mu _q=0`$ into the region of $`\mu _q>0`$. Nonetheless they led to qualitatively and even quantitatively similar results.

The basic pattern found for the temperature dependence of, e.g. the pressure at finite density, follows closely that already seen at $`\mu _q=0`$; the pressure changes rapidly in a narrow temperature interval and comes close to the Stefan-Boltzmann value of an ideal gas of quarks and gluons at about twice the transition temperature. Consequently, the density dependence of the equation of state in the high temperature plasma phase has successfully been compared  with quasi-particle models that were also used at $`\mu _q=0`$.

In this work we concentrate on a discussion of the thermodynamics of the hadronic phase of QCD in the regime of low baryon number density ($`\mu _q/T<1`$) but high temperature ($`TT_c(\mu _q=0)`$). In a recent paper we have shown  that the partition function of a hadron resonance gas yields quite a satisfactory description of lattice results on bulk thermodynamic observables in the low temperature, hadronic phase of QCD at $`\mu _q=0`$. We will extend here our previous study to finite chemical potential and compare the predictions of the resonance gas model calculations with lattice results obtained in 2-flavour QCD using a Taylor expansion for small $`\mu _q/T`$ . The reference system for these calculations is a previous analysis  of the temperature dependence of the pressure in 2-flavour QCD performed at $`\mu _q=0`$. Unlike the approach based on an exact inversion of the fermion determinant  the Taylor expansion, obviously, has the disadvantage of being approximate. There is, however, good reason to expect, that at least at high temperature, the contribution of terms that are beyond $`𝒪((\mu _q/T)^4)`$ order is small. Moreover, as will become clear from our discussion below, it turns out that the expansion coefficients themselves provide useful information on the relevant degrees of freedom controlling the density dependence of thermodynamic quantities. We argue that baryons and their resonances are these relevant degrees of freedom that govern thermodynamics in the confined phase at finite density. We show that for $`TT_c`$ the equation of state at non-zero chemical potential which has been obtained in lattice calculations can be well described by a baryonic resonance gas when using the same set of approximations as used in current lattice studies. We examine the importance of truncation effects in the Taylor expansion and discuss the influence of unphysically large quark mass values on thermodynamic observables and the critical conditions for deconfinement.

## 2 Finite density QCD and Taylor Expansion

The basic quantity that describes thermodynamics at non-vanishing chemical potential is the pressure. In the grand–canonical ensemble it is obtained111Although the volume dependence of thermodynamic quantities calculated on the lattice requires a careful analysis and has not yet been performed for most thermodynamic studies with dynamical quarks, we will for simplicity of notation suppress in the following any volume dependence in our formulas. from the partition function as

$$p(T,\mu _q)=\underset{V\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{T}{V}\mathrm{ln}Z(T,\mu _q,V).$$
(1)
For small values of $`\mu _q/T`$ the pressure may be expanded in a power series,

$$\frac{p(T,\mu _q)}{T^4}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}c_{2n}(T)\left(\frac{\mu _q}{T}\right)^{2n}.$$
(2)
In recent lattice calculations this series has been analyzed up to $`𝒪((\mu _q/T)^4)`$ and in addition to the density dependent change of the pressure ($`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$) quantities like the quark number density ($`n_q`$) and quark number susceptibility ($`\chi _q`$) have been calculated. The latter are obtained from Eq. 2 through appropriate derivatives with respect to the quark chemical potential,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }p}{T^4}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p(T,\mu _q)p(T,0)}{T^4}}c_2(T)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)^2+c_4(T)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)^4,`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{n_q}{T^3}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p(T,\mu _q)}{\mu _q}}2c_2(T)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)+4c_4(T)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)^3,`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\chi _q}{T^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{^2p(T,\mu _q)}{\mu _q^2}}2c_2(T)+12c_4(T)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)^2.`$ (3)
In the asymptotically high temperature limit this expansion terminates, in fact, at the order given in Eq. 3. The expansion coefficients are then given by $`c_2(\mathrm{})=n_f/2`$ and $`c_4(\mathrm{})/c_2(\mathrm{})=1/2\pi ^2`$ respectively222 Also at $`O(g^2)`$ the high temperature expansion terminates at $`O((\frac{\mu _q}{T})^4)`$. This, however, changes in the resumed $`O(g^3)`$ contribution. The complete expansion up to $`O(g^6\mathrm{ln}g)`$ has recently been presented in .. In this limit the ratio $`c_4/c_2`$ is small and the leading order term, consequently, dominates in the Taylor expansion for a wide range of values for $`\mu _q/T`$. The lattice results for the expansion coefficients, obtained in 2-flavour QCD are shown in Fig. 1. It can be seen, that at $`T1.5T_0`$ the numerical results for $`c_2(T)`$ still deviate by about 20% from the ideal gas value while the ratio $`c_4/c_2`$ is already close to the corresponding result expected in the infinite temperature limit.

## 3 Resonance Gas and Boltzmann Approximation

The analysis of experimental data on the production cross sections of various hadrons in heavy ion collisions shows astonishingly good agreement with corresponding thermal abundances calculated in a hadronic resonance gas model at appropriately chosen temperature and chemical potential . Our recent analysis of the equation of state calculated on the lattice at $`\mu _q=0`$ also has shown that a gas of non-interacting resonances can provide a good description of the low temperature phase of QCD . We want to extent here our analysis to the case of non-vanishing chemical potential.

The partition function of a resonance gas can be specified through the mass spectra for the mesonic and baryonic sectors of QCD, respectively. In a non-interacting resonance gas the partition function reads,

$`\mathrm{ln}Z(T,\mu _B,V)={\displaystyle \underset{i\mathrm{mesons}}{}}\mathrm{ln}Z_{m_i}^B(T,V)+{\displaystyle \underset{i\mathrm{baryons}}{}}\mathrm{ln}Z_{m_i}^F(T,\mu _B,V),`$ (4)
where $`Z_{m_i}^B(Z_{m_i}^F)`$ denote single particle partition functions for bosons and fermions with mass $`m_i`$ and $`\mu _B=3\mu _q`$ is the baryon chemical potential. Here the fermion partition function contains the contribution from a particle and its anti-particle. The total pressure of the resonance gas is then obtained from Eq. 1 and builds up as a sum of contributions from particles of mass $`m_i`$. The dependence of the pressure on the chemical potential at a fixed temperature is thus entirely due to the baryonic sector. The contribution, $`p_m`$, of baryons of mass $`m`$ to the total pressure is given by

$$\frac{p_m}{T}=\frac{d}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑kk^2\mathrm{ln}\left[(1+z\mathrm{exp}\{\epsilon (k)/T\})(1+z^1\mathrm{exp}\{\epsilon (k)/T\})\right]$$
(5)
where $`z\mathrm{exp}\{\mu _B/T\}`$ is the baryonic fugacity with $`\mu _B=3\mu _q`$, $`d`$ is the spin–isospin degeneracy factor and $`\epsilon (k)=\sqrt{k^2+m^2}`$ is the relativistic single particle energy. The pressure may be expressed in terms of a fugacity expansion as

$$\frac{p_m}{T^4}=\frac{d}{\pi ^2}\left(\frac{m}{T}\right)^2\underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^{\mathrm{}+1}\mathrm{}^2K_2(\mathrm{}m/T)\mathrm{cosh}(\mathrm{}\mu _B/T),$$
(6)
where $`K_2`$ is the Bessel function.

In the hadronic phase of QCD the relevant temperatures will always be smaller than the transition temperature to the plasma phase determined in lattice calculations at $`\mu _B=0`$, i.e. we are interested in the regime $`T<200`$ MeV . As the mass of the lightest baryon ($`m_N`$) is about five times larger than this value, the Bessel functions appearing in Eq. 6 can always be approximated by the asymptotic form valid for large arguments, i.e. $`K_2(x)\sqrt{\pi /2x}\mathrm{exp}(x)`$. This shows that higher order terms in Eq. 6 are suppressed by factors $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{}(m\mu _B)/T)`$. As long as $`(m_N\mu _B)>T`$ the contribution of baryons to the resonance gas partition function is thus well approximated by the leading term in Eq. 6, which constitutes the Boltzmann approximation. In this case each baryon/anti-baryon pair contributes to the pressure with

$$\frac{p_m}{T^4}=\frac{d}{\pi ^2}\left(\frac{m}{T}\right)^2K_2(m/T)\mathrm{cosh}(\mu _B/T).$$
(7)
Thus, the total baryonic contribution to the pressure of a resonance gas reads

$$\frac{p_B}{T^4}=F(T)\mathrm{cosh}(\mu _B/T),$$
(8)
where $`F(T)`$ is defined by

$$F(T)\underset{i}{}\frac{d_i}{\pi ^2}\left(\frac{m_i}{T}\right)^2K_2(m_i/T),$$
(9)
and the sum is taken over all known baryons and their resonances.

Current lattice studies of the hadronic phase of QCD with non-vanishing chemical potential concentrate on a temperature regime $`0.8T_0<T<T_0`$ with quark chemical potentials $`\mu _q<T`$. The baryon chemical potential $`\mu _B=3\mu _q`$ thus stays considerably smaller than the nucleon mass. Under these conditions the Boltzmann approximation will be applicable and the dependence of the pressure on the baryon chemical potential will just be mediated through a multiplicative factor as given in Eq. 8. We stress that this simple relation is independent of details of the mass spectrum as long as all fermions are sufficiently heavy. The factorization of the part depending on the mass spectrum and that depending on the chemical potential, however, also relies on the assumption that interactions among the hadrons and resonances are negligible. The validity of this assumption can be verified through a direct comparison with lattice calculations for $`\mu _q>0`$ and for $`T<T_0`$.

Following Eqs. 78 we can specify the results for the change in pressure, the quark number density and quark number susceptibility. In order to compare the predictions of the resonance gas model with lattice results one still needs to perform the Taylor expansion up to the same order as given in Eq. 3. In the Boltzmann approximation we have,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }p}{T^4}}`$ $`=`$ $`F(T)[\mathrm{cosh}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _B}{T}}1]F(T)\left(\stackrel{~}{c}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)^2+\stackrel{~}{c}_4\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)^4\right),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{n_q}{T^3}}`$ $`=`$ $`3F(T)\mathrm{sinh}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _B}{T}}F(T)\left(2\stackrel{~}{c}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)+4\stackrel{~}{c}_4\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)^3\right),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\chi _q}{T^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`9F(T)\mathrm{cosh}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _B}{T}}F(T)\left(2\stackrel{~}{c}_2+12\stackrel{~}{c}_4\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q}{T}}\right)^2\right),`$ (10)
with $`\stackrel{~}{c}_2=9/2`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{c}_4=27/8`$. In the resonance gas model the expansion coefficients introduced in Eq. 3 are given by $`c_{2n}=\stackrel{~}{c}_{2n}F(T)`$. We note that ratios of these quantities indeed are independent of the resonance mass spectrum and only depend on the chemical potential. For fixed $`\mu _q/T`$ we thus expect to find that any ratio of two of the above quantities is temperature independent in the hadronic phase. Using the same order of the Taylor expansion as used in the lattice calculations such ratios only depend on $`\stackrel{~}{c}_4/\stackrel{~}{c}_2=3/4`$, i.e. the resonance gas model yields a temperature independent ratio $`c_4/c_2`$. As can be seen in the right–hand part of Fig. 1 this is indeed in good agreement with the lattice results. We note that this result is independent of details of the hadron mass spectrum. It thus should also be insensitive to the change in the quark mass used in the lattice calculation. In Fig. 2 we show the ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/T^2\chi _q`$ for two values of the chemical potential. The good agreement between lattice calculations and the hadronic gas results merely reflects the agreement found already for the ratio $`c_4/c_2`$. In the resonance gas model we can, however, provide also the complete result for this ratio,

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }p}{T^2\chi _q}=\frac{1}{9}\left(1\mathrm{cosh}^1(3\mu _q/T)\right).$$
(11)
This is shown as a dashed–dotted line in Fig. 2.

The agreement of the ratio $`c_4/c_2`$ calculated in the resonance gas model and on the lattice also implies that, for all values of $`\mu _q/T`$, the temperature dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$ and its derivatives like e.g. the quark number susceptibility is to a large extent controlled by the same function, $`c_2(T)=\frac{9}{2}F(T)`$. To determine, however, the function $`F(T)`$ we have to specify the baryon mass spectrum explicitly. This is, in general, known experimentally. However, to facilitate a direct comparison with lattice calculations we have to take into account that the spectrum is distorted due to the still quite large quark masses used in calculations of the equation of state333The phase transition temperature has been calculated at a large set of quark mass values, including rather small values which lead to ”almost” physical hadron masses. So far the equation of state, however, has been studied with improved actions only for one set of quark masses corresponding to a pion mass of about 770 MeV .. In addition we have to take into account that also the transition temperature is quark mass dependent. For the quark mass value used in the numerical study of the equation of state  the transition temperature has been determined as $`T_0200`$ MeV. While an extrapolation to the chiral limit yields the transition temperature of about 170 MeV. We use $`T_0`$ to express the hadron masses in units of the temperature, $`m/T(m/T_0)(T_0/T)`$ with $`T`$ scaled in units of $`T_0`$.

The distortion of the hadron mass spectrum due to unphysically large quark masses ($`m_q`$) can in general be deduced from lattice calculations at zero temperature. A generic feature of such studies is that the deviation from the physical mass value due to unphysically large values of the quark mass becomes smaller for heavier hadronic states (see eg. ). Moreover, one finds  that the quark mass dependence is well parametrized through the relation, $`(m_Ha)^2=(m_Ha)_{phys}^2+b(m_\pi a)^2`$, where $`(m_Ha)_{phys}`$ denotes the physical mass value of a hadron expressed in lattice units and $`(m_Ha)`$ is the value calculated on the lattice for a certain value of the quark mass or equivalently a certain value of the pion mass ($`m_\pi ^2m_q`$). Until now, however, the masses of only a few baryonic states constructed from $`(u,d)`$-quarks have been studied in more detail on the lattice . This is obviously not sufficient to fix the function $`F(T)`$ in Eq.(7) that requires the contributions from a large set of baryonic resonances.

The above quadratic parametrization of the quark mass dependence of baryon masses shows at least for nucleon, delta and their parity partners only a weak dependence on the hadron mass. We thus take this as a general ansatz for the parametrization of the dependence of baryon masses on the pion mass,

$$\frac{m(m_\pi )}{m_H}1+A\frac{m_\pi ^2}{m_H^2},$$
(12)
where $`m(m_\pi )`$ is the distorted hadron mass at fixed $`m_\pi `$ and $`m_H`$ is its corresponding physical value. This parametrization is consistent with our previous analysis  where we have used the MIT bag model to determine the $`m_\pi `$–dependence of hadron masses.

The lattice results  for QCD thermodynamics at finite $`\mu _q`$ were obtained in 2-flavour QCD. An immediate consequence of the restriction to only two quark flavour is that we have to suppress the contribution from strange baryons to the resonance gas in the low temperature phase. Moreover, since the lattice results were obtained with a quite large value of $`m_q`$, corresponding to $`m_\pi /\sqrt{\sigma }=1.84\pm 0.04`$, we account for modifications of the baryon mass spectrum using Eq. (12). From the pion mass dependence of the nucleon, delta and their parity partners  we estimate $`0.9<A<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1.2}`$ in Eq. (12). This range of values is also expected from the bag model study in Ref. .

The above discussion fixes our parametrization of the baryonic sector of the resonance gas model at unphysical values of the quark mass as they are used in current lattice calculations. The resulting temperature dependence of the expansion coefficient $`c_2(T)`$ is shown in Fig. 1a. The corresponding result for the quark number susceptibility at different values of the quark chemical potential is shown in Fig. 3 for the choice $`A=1.0`$. The agreement of the resonance gas model and results obtained from lattice calculations is indeed quite satisfactory. This indicates that the thermodynamics of the confined phase of QCD at finite density is to large extent governed by the baryonic resonances. As can be seen in Fig. 1a the 15% uncertainty in the parametrization of the baryonic mass spectrum (Eq. 12) results in $`20\%`$ error on the values of physical observables, i.e. $`c_2(T)`$, at $`T=T_0`$.

## 4 Relaxing the lattice constraints

We want to discuss here in somewhat more detail what the resonance gas model calculation suggests for the quark mass dependence of current thermodynamic studies on the lattice and what the influence of the truncation of the Taylor series expansion on the behavior of thermodynamic quantities in the hadronic phase could be. The latter clearly depends on the observable under consideration. As anticipated also in Ref.  the influence of a truncation of the Taylor expansion for the pressure at $`𝒪((\mu _q/T)^4)`$ becomes more severe in calculations of the quark number susceptibility as the expansion stops here already at $`𝒪((\mu _q/T)^2)`$. The resonance gas model suggests that for $`\mu _q/T=1`$ the truncated result for the pressure differs only by 15% from the complete result. These truncation errors rise to about 80% in calculations of $`\chi _q/T^2`$ at $`\mu _q/T=1`$. The major part of this truncation error could be removed by calculating the $`𝒪((\mu _q/T)^6)`$ contribution to $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/T^4`$. These properties are seen in Fig. 4 where the results of the resonance gas calculation performed with the complete $`(\mu _q/T)`$-dependence and a Taylor expansion truncated at $`O((\mu _q/T)^4)`$ are shown for pressure and quark number susceptibility.

Already in the discussion of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/T^2\chi _q`$ we indicated that within the Boltzmann approximation this and similar ratios are independent of the resonance mass spectrum and thus also on the quark masses. Changes in the quark mass thus will influence calculations of the pressure and its derivatives in a similar way. Replacing in the resonance gas calculation the modified baryon spectrum by the experimentally known spectrum will increase the value of the pressure as all baryons become lighter. This effect is somewhat reduced as also the relevant temperature scale is shifted to smaller values, i.e. the transition temperature will shift from $`T_0200`$ MeV to $`T_0170`$ MeV. As can be seen in Fig. 4 this increases the pressure and its derivatives. The extrapolation to the physical case depends, however, quite sensitively on the value for the critical temperature. We note that the resonance gas model calculation favours a small critical temperature as it seems to be unlikely that $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/T^4`$ will exceed the corresponding ideal gas value at $`T_0`$.

Finally, we want to comment on the convergence radius of the Taylor expansion in $`(\mu _q/T)`$. The resonance gas model, of course, does not lead to critical behaviour. Consequently also the dependence on $`(\mu _q/T)`$ is given by an analytic function. The resulting Taylor expansion has an infinite convergence radius, which in terms of the convergence criterium used in Ref.  is reflected in the fact that,

$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\sqrt{c_{2n}/c_{2n+2}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{},`$
for all temperatures in the resonance gas model. In the case of QCD, we expect, however, that the convergence radius is bounded from above by the location of the phase boundary to the quark gluon plasma phase. In particular, we expect that the ratios $`c_{2n}/c_{2n+2}`$ stay close to unity for temperatures close to $`T_0`$. In fact, this also is the case for the low order expansion coefficients in the resonance gas model, i.e. $`c_2/c_4=4/3`$. This, however, changes already at the next order, $`c_4/c_6=10/3`$. We thus expect that differences between lattice results on the QCD thermodynamics and resonance gas model calculations should show up at $`𝒪((\mu _q/T)^6)`$.

## 5 Conclusion and Outlook

We have shown that basic features of the density dependence of the QCD equation of state in the hadronic phase observed in recent lattice studies can be understood in terms of the thermodynamics of a baryonic resonance gas. A quite robust result, independent of the detailed structure of the hadron mass spectrum, is the dependence of thermodynamic quantities on $`\mu _q/T`$ at fixed temperature. This indicates that the thermodynamics at low temperatures is dominated by heavy degrees of freedom which justify a Boltzmann approximation for the partition function. Within the resonance gas model these degrees of freedom are non-interacting which leads to simple relations among different thermodynamic observables. In particular, we argued that the ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/T^2\chi _q`$ is independent of temperature at fixed $`\mu _q/T`$. This is in agreement with current lattice calculations. It is, however, clear that this has to change, when the system undergoes a true phase transition at some temperature $`T_c(\mu _q)<T_0`$ for a sufficiently large value of $`\mu _q/T`$. In particular, we expect that the quark number susceptibility will diverge at the chiral critical point, i.e. at the second order endpoint of a line of first order phase transitions , which should lead to a dip in the ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/T^2\chi _q`$ at $`T_c(\mu _q)`$.

Finally we note that the relevance of the resonance gas model predictions for the description of the low temperature phase of QCD can also be tested in the imaginary chemical potential approach  which also is used in lattice calculations. The resonance gas model, for instance, suggests that the change in pressure is quite well described by a simple trigonometric function, $`\mathrm{cos}(3\mu _q/T)`$.

## Acknowledgments

We acknowledge stimulating discussions with S. Ejiri and C. Schmidt. K.R. also acknowledges the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) and the Polish Committee for Scientific Research (KBN). This work has partly been supported by the DFG under grant FOR 339/2-1 and the GSI collaboration grant BI-KAR.