Net-baryon number fluctuations

The appearance of large, non-Gaussian cumulants of the baryon number distribution is commonly discussed as a signal for the QCD critical point. We review the status of the Taylor expansion of cumulant ratios of baryon number fluctuations along the freeze-out line and also compare QCD results with the corresponding proton number fluctuations as measured by the STAR Collaboration at RHIC. To further constrain the location of a possible QCD critical point, we discuss poles of the baryon number fluctuations in the complex plane. Here, we use not only the Taylor coefficients obtained at zero chemical potential but perform also calculations of Taylor expansion coefficients of the pressure at purely imaginary chemical potentials