Influence of finite volume and magnetic field effects on the QCD phase diagram

The Polyakov linear sigma model (PLSM) is used to investigate the respective influence of a finite volume and a magnetic field on the quark-hadron phase boundary in the plane of baryon chemical potential (${\mu }_B$) vs. temperature ($T$) of the QCD phase diagram. The calculated results indicate sizable shifts of the quark-hadron phase boundary to lower values of $({\mu }_B\text{ and }T)$ for increasing magnetic field strength, and an opposite shift to higher values of $({\mu }_B\text{ and }T)$ for decreasing system volume. Such shifts could have important implications for extraction of the thermodynamic properties of the QCD phase diagram from heavy ion data.