The correlation between net baryon number and electric charge, ${\chi }_{11}^{\mathrm{BQ}}$, can serve as a magnetometer of QCD. This is demonstrated by lattice QCD computations using the highly improved staggered quarks with physical pion mass of $M_{\pi }=135\mathrm{MeV}$ on $N_{\tau }=8$ and 12 lattices. We find that ${\chi }_{11}^{\mathrm{BQ}}$ along the transition line starts to increase rapidly with magnetic field strength $eB\gtrsim 2M_{\pi }^2$ and by a factor 2 at $eB\simeq 8M_{\pi }^2$. Furthermore, the ratio of electric charge chemical potential to baryon chemical potential, ${\mu }_{\mathrm{Q}}/{\mu }_{\mathrm{B}}$, shows significant dependence on the magnetic field strength and varies from the ratio of electric charge to baryon number in the colliding nuclei in heavy ion collisions. These results can provide baselines for effective theory and model studies, and both ${\chi }_{11}^{\mathrm{BQ}}$ and ${\mu }_{\mathrm{Q}}/{\mu }_{\mathrm{B}}$ could be useful probes for the detection of magnetic fields in relativistic heavy ion collision experiments as compared with corresponding results from the hadron resonance gas model.

• Received 19 December 2023
• Revised 18 March 2024
• Accepted 23 April 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.201903

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Published by the American Physical Society