The critical endpoint of bootstrap and lattice QCD matter

The critical sector of strong interactions at high temperatures is explored in the frame of two complementary approaches: statistical bootstrap for the hadronic phase and lattice QCD for the quark-gluon partition function. A region of thermodynamic instability of hadronic matter was found, as a direct prediction of statistical bootstrap. As a result, critical endpoint solutions for nonzero chemical potential were traced in the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. These solutions are compared with recent lattice QCD results and their proximity to the freeze-out points of experiments with nuclei at high energies is also discussed. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.