PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Higher order moments of net conserved charge fluctuations, in particular netbaryon number and net electric charge, are sensitive thermodynamic observablesthat respond strongly to critical behavior in strong interaction matter. Inorder to use them also as a sensible probe to detect critical behavior in heavyion experiments we not only need to better understand the relation betweenchemical freeze-out in heavy ion collision and the QCD phase boundary, we alsoneed to verify that charge fluctuations measured experimentally indeedcorrespond to thermal conditions as described by equilibrium QCD. This requiresa model independent characterization of thermal conditions for which cumulantsof conserved charge fluctuations themselves are ideally suited.