  The scalar-isoscalar mode of QCD becomes lighter/nearly massless close to the
chiral transition/second-order critical point. From nuclear physics we know
that this mode is the main responsible for the attractive part of the
nucleon-nucleon potential at inter-particle distances of 1-2 fm. Therefore one
expects that close to the critical point there is a long-range strong
attraction among nucleons. Using a Walecka-Serot model for the NN potential we
study the effects of the critical point in a finite system of nucleons and
mesons by solving classical Molecular Dynamics+Langevin equations for the
freeze-out conditions of heavy-ion collisions. Going beyond the mean-field
approximation allows us to account for strong nucleon correlations in the time
evolution, leading to baryon clustering. We observe that light cluster
formation, together with an enhancement of higher-order cumulants of the proton
distribution can signal the presence of the critical point.
