The QCD phase transition at high temperature and low density

Abstract We study the thermal properties of QCD in the presence of a small quark chemical potential μ. Derivatives of the phase transition point with respect to μ are computed at μ = 0 for 2 and 3 flavors of p-4 improved staggered fermions on a 16 3 × 4 lattice. Moreover we contrast the case of isoscalar and isovector chemical potentials, quantify the effect of μ ≠ 0 on the equation of state, and comment on the screening effect by dynamical quarks and the complex phase of the fermion determinant in QCD with μ ≠ 0.