Equation of state at finite density in two-flavor QCD with improved Wilson quarks
S. Aoki, S. Ejiri, T. Hatsuda, N. Ishii, K. Kanaya, Y. Maezawa, N. Ukita, T. Umeda
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7 pages, 16 figures, presented at the XXVI International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (LATTICE 2008), July 14-19, 2008, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
We study the equation of state in two-flavor QCD at finite temperature and density. Simulations are made with the RG-improved gluon action and the clover-improved Wilson quark action. Along the lines of constant physics for $m_{\rm PS}/m_{\rm V} = 0.65$ and 0.80, we compute the derivatives of the quark determinant with respect to the quark chemical potential $μ_q$ up to the fourth order at $μ_q=0$. We adopt several improvement techniques in the evaluation. We study thermodynamic quantities and quark number susceptibilities at finite $μ_q$ using these derivatives. We find enhancement of the quark number susceptibility at finite $μ_q$, in accordance with previous observations using staggered-type quarks. This suggests the existence of a nearby critical point.
The first results on lattice at finite temperature $T$ and chemical potential $μ$ with 2+1 flavors of Wilson quarks are presented. We have studied the dependence of chiral phase transition and deconfinement phase transition on quark mass. Finite volume size analysis and Binder cumulants are used to determine the properties of phase transition. Phase diagram of QCD with 2+1 flavors of Wilson quarks are presented.
We have determined the non-perturbative O(a)-improvement coefficient c_sw for four flavors of Wilson quarks with the plaquette gauge action in a range of beta >= 5. The data are fitted with several Pade approximation formulae to get an impression of the stability. A small extrapolation below beta=5 seems acceptable.
We present further data in search of a parity-flavor-breaking phase in simulations of dynamical QCD with two flavors of light Wilson fermions in the strong coupling region. This is done on lattice sizes of 4^4 an up to 10^4 for a variety of values of beta and kappa as well as the coefficient, h, of an explicit breaking term included in the action. We confirm the existence of a region in the beta-kappa plane where such a phase exists at beta=6/g^2 smaller than 5.0 and above kappa_c.
We construct positive-definite pseudofermion actions for one fermion flavor in lattice field theory, for Wilson and domain-wall fermions respectively. The positive definiteness of these actions ensures that they can be simulated with the Hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) method. For lattice QCD with optimal domain-wall quarks, we compare the efficiency of HMC simulations of 2-flavor and (1+1)-flavor, and find that the efficiency ratio is about 3:2.
We study aspects concerning numerical simulations of Lattice QCD with two flavors of dynamical Ginsparg-Wilson quarks with degenerate masses. A Hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm is described and the formula for the fermionic force is derived for two specific implementations. The implementation with optimal rational approximation method is favored both in CPU time and memory consumption.
We consider 2+1 flavor Wilson Chiral Perturbation Theory including the lattice spacing contributions of O($a^{2}$). We adopt a power counting appropriate for the unquenched lattice simulations carried out by the CP-PACS/JLQCD collaboration and compute the pseudo scalar meson masses to one loop. These expression are required to perform the chiral extrapolation of the CP-PACS/JLQCD lattice data.
We present data testing the existence of a parity-flavor breaking phase in simulations of QCD with two flavors of light Wilson fermions. This is done by explicit simulations on lattice sizes of $6^4$, $8^4$ and $10^4$ for a variety of values of $β$ and $κ$ as well as the coefficient, $h$, of an explicit breaking term included in the action. We find that at $β=6/g^2 $ equal to or greater than 5.0 extrapolation in the parameter $h$ as well as in the lattice volume show no indication of a phase where parity and flavor are spontaneously broken in the limit of zero $h$.
We present further analyses of the finite-temperature phase structure of lattice QCD with the Wilson quark action based on spontaneous breakdown of parity-flavor symmetry. Results are reported on (i) an explicit demonstration of spontaneous breakdown of parity-flavor symmetry beyond the critical line, (ii) phase structure and order of chiral transition for the case of $N_f=4$ flavors, and (iii) approach toward the continuum limit.
We study thermodynamic properties of 2+1 flavor QCD with improved Wilson quarks coupled with the RG improved Iwasaki glue, using the fixed scale approach. We present the results for the equation of state, renormalized Polyakov loop, and chiral condensate.
We study the lattice \njl~model with two flavors of Wilson fermions in the large $N$ limit, where $N$ is the number of `colors'. For large values of the four-fermion coupling we find a phase in which both, flavor symmetry and parity, are spontaneously broken. In accordance with general expectations there are three massless pions on the phase boundary, but only two of them remain massless inside the broken phase. This is analogous to earlier results obtained in lattice QCD, indicating that this behavior is a very general feature of the Wilson term.
We present the status of our study on the equation of state in 2+1 flavor QCD with non-perturbatively improved Wilson quarks coupled with the RG improved glue. We apply the T-integration method to non-perturbatively calculate the equation of state by the fixed-scale approach.
We report our study on the critical endpoint of the finite temperature phase transition in 4-flavor QCD with Wilson-Clover fermions. Using the kurtosis intersection method, we determined the critical endpoint on lattices with $N_t$ = 4, 6 and 8. Our continuum extrapolated results show that the pseudo-scalar meson mass at the critical endpoint, $m_\mathrm{PS,E}$, for 4-flavor is clearly larger than that for 3-flavor. We also compared our results to those with staggered fermions and found that $m_\mathrm{PS,E}/T_E$ for 4-flavor with Wilson fermions might remain finite even in the continuum limit…
We consider O(a) improvement for two flavor lattice QCD. The improvement term in the action is computed non-perturbatively for a large range of the bare coupling. The position of the critical line and higher order lattice artifacts remaining after improvement are estimated. We also discuss the behavior of the HMC algorithm in our simulations.
We present results of finite temperature QCD from N_f=2 flavors of non-perturbatively improved Wilson fermions on lattices with N_t=8, 10 and 12. The transition temperature T_c is determined for the first time at lattice spacings as low as a = 0.08 fm, albeit at pion masses 1.3 < r_0 m_π. We furthermore compute the screening masses in various color channels at T>T_c.
We report the current status of our systematic studies of the QCD thermodynamics by lattice QCD simulations with two flavors of improved Wilson quarks. We evaluate the critical temperature of two flavor QCD in the chiral limit at zero chemical potential and show the preliminary result. Also we discuss fluctuations at none-zero temperature and density by calculating the quark number and isospin susceptibilities and their derivatives with respect to chemical potential.
The Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model is chirally symmetric. Addition of a Wilson term explicitly breaks this symmetry and leaves the model with a remaining parity-flavor symmetry. In the approximation of a large number of colors it has been shown that there is a phase where the remaining parity-flavor symmetry is spontaneously broken and that on the phase boundary all pions become massless. Using numerical simulations we confirm the existence of this phase for the case of two flavors and two colors. We also confirm the large N prediction of the existence of large finite size effects that alter the sh…
We construct the chiral low-energy effective theory for 2+1+1 flavor lattice QCD with twisted mass Wilson fermions. In contrast to existing results we assume a heavy charm quark mass such that the D mesons are too heavy to appear as degrees of freedom in the effective theory. As an application we compute the kaon mass to 1-loop order in the LCE regime. The result contains a chiral logarithm involving the neutral pion mass which has no analogue in continuum ChPT.
We study the Schrödinger functional running coupling in the SU(2) gauge theory with six-flavors of massless fermions. The aim is to determine whether the above theory has an infrared fixed point (IRFP). We use the standard Wilson gauge action and the stout-smeared Wilson fermion action. Here we present a determination of the critical mass as a function of the bare coupling and a preliminary study of the phase diagram of this lattice action. We also find preliminary indication that this theory has no IRFP. While this conclusion is not yet definite, we also show that with this approach we will b…
We present a status report of our calculation of the electromagnetic form factor of the pion on the PACS-CS gauge field configurations generated using Iwasaki gauge action and Wilson-clover quark action for 2 + 1 flavors of light dynamical quarks. The technique of twiseted boundary conditon is employed to explore the form factor for small momentum transfer. The $q^2$ behavior of the form factor and its light quark mass dependence is examined.
We study the phase structure of QCD at finite temperatures with two flavors of dynamical quarks on a lattice with the size $N_s^3 \times N_t=16^3 \times 4$, using a renormalization group improved gauge action and a clover improved Wilson quark action. The simulations are made along the lines of constant physics determined in terms of $m_{\rm PS}/m_{\rm V}$ at zero-temperature. We show preliminary results for the spatial string tension in the high temperature phase.
We make simulations with 2 flavor Wilson fermions to investigate the nature of the end points of Roberge-Weiss (RW) first order phase transition lines. The simulations are carried out at 9 values of the hopping parameter $κ$ ranging from 0.155 to 0.198 on different lattice spatial volume. The Binder cumulants, susceptibilities and reweighted distributions of the imaginary part of Polyakov loop are employed to determine the nature of the end points of RW transition lines. The simulations show that the RW end points are of first order at the values of $κ$ in our simulations.
The critical temperature is computed for N_f = 2 dynamical flavors of nonperturbatively improved Wilson fermions. The new simulations are performed on lattices 40^3 x 14 with lattice spacing and pion mass about 0.08 fm and 200 MeV, respectively. We find the deconfinement and chiral phase transitions to coincide within numerical precision. Our results are in broad agreement with a second order phase transition in the chiral limit. The critical temperature at the physical quark mass is found to be T_c = 172(3)(6) MeV.
We study QCD with two flavors of non-perturbatively improved Wilson fermions at finite temperature on the $16^3 8$ lattice. We determine the transition temperature at lattice spacings as small as $a \sim 0.12$ fm, and study string breaking below the finite temperature transition. We find that the static potential can be fitted by a two-state ansatz, including a string state and a two-meson state. We investigate the role of Abelian monopoles at finite temperature.
We present the results of a full QCD lattice calculation of the flavor singlet axial vector coupling $G_A^1$ of the proton. The simulation has been carried out on a $16^3\times 32$ lattice at $β=5.6$ with $n_f=2$ dynamical Wilson fermions. It turns out that the statistical quality of the connected contribution to $G_A^1$ is excellent, whereas the disconnected part is accessible but suffers from large statistical fluctuations. Using a 1st order tadpole improved renormalization constant $Z_A$, we estimate $G_A^1 = 0.20(12)$.
We review studies of QCD thermodynamics by lattice QCD simulations with dynamical Wilson quarks. After explaining the basic properties of QCD with Wilson quarks at finite temperature including the phase structure and the scaling properties around the chiral phase transition, we discuss the critical temperature, the equation of state and heavy-quark free energies.
We review our results for lattice QCD at finite temperature and density from analytical and numerical calculations with Wilson fermions and overlap fermions.
The nature of the chiral phase transition in lattice QCD is studied for the cases of 2, 3 and 6 flavors with degenerate Wilson quarks, mainly on a lattice with the temporal direction extension $N_t=4$. We find that the chiral phase transition is continuous for the case of 2 flavors, while it is of first order for 3 and 6 flavors.
We report on the status of our study towards the equation of state in 2+1 flavor QCD with improved Wilson quarks. To reduce the computational cost which is quite demanding for Wilson-type quarks, we adopt the fixed scale approach, i.e. the temperature T is varied by N_t at fixed lattice spacing. Since the conventional integral method to obtain the pressure is inapplicable at a fixed scale, we adopt the "T-integral method", to calculate the pressure non-perturbatively. Reduction of the computational cost of T=0 simulations thus achieved is indispensable to study EOS in QCD with dynamical quarks…
We calculate the vector meson masses in $N_{\rm f} = 2+1$ Wilson chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order. Generalizing the framework of heavy vector meson chiral perturbation theory, the quark mass and the lattice cutoff dependence of the vector meson masses is derived. Our chiral order counting assumes that the lattice cut-off artifacts are of the order of the typical pion momenta, $p \sim aΛ_{\rm QCD}^{2}$. This counting scheme is consistent with the one in the pseudo scalar meson sector where the O($a^2$) terms are included in the leading order chiral Lagrangian.
The finite temperature QCD phase transition is studied on the lattice with degenerate two flavors of Wilson quarks. Motivated by reported strange behaviors with the standard action on lattices with the temporal extention $N_t=4$ and 6, a renormalization group improved gauge action is applied. On an $N_t=4$ lattice, the strange behaviors observed with the standard action are removed with our improved action. The finite temperature transition is continuous in the chiral limit and it becomes quite smooth in all observables we studied when we increase the quark mass by increasing $β$ along the cro…
We compare the Hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) and the Kramers equation algorithms for simulations of QCD with two flavors of dynamical Wilson fermions and gauge group $SU(2)$. The results for the performance of both algorithms are obtained on $6^312$, $12^4$ and $16^4$ lattices at a pion to $ρ$ meson mass ratio of $m_π/m_ρ\approx 0.9$. We find that the Kramers equation algorithm gives an equally good performance as the HMC algorithm. We demonstrate that the classical equations of motion used in these algorithms lack reversibility in practical simulations and behave like those of a chaotic dynamical …
We investigate the real and imaginary chemical-potential dependence of pion and $ρ$-meson screening masses in both the confinement and the deconfinement region by using two-flavor lattice QCD. The spatial meson correlators are calculated in the imaginary chemical potential region with lattice QCD simulations. We extract pion and $ρ$-meson screening masses from the correlators. The obtained meson screening masses are extrapolated to the real chemical potential region by assuming some analytic function. In the real chemical potential region, the resulting pion and $ρ$-meson screening masses mono…
We study the hadronic spectrum in quenched lattice QCD using an improved Wilson fermion action (Hamber-Wu(1983),Eguchi-Kawamoto(1984)) at $β= 5.7$ and $β=6.0$. We find a systematic reduction of the finite spacing effects compared to the results obtained by using the standard Wilson action.
We propose a strategy to non-perturbatively match the Wilson coefficients in the three- and four-flavor theories, which uses two-point Green's functions of the corresponding four-quark operators at long distances. The idea is refined by combining with the spherical averaging technique, which enables us to convert two-point functions calculated on the lattice into continuous functions of the distance $|x-y|$ between two operators. We also show the result for an exploratory calculation of two-point functions of the $ΔS=1$ operators $Q_7$ and $Q_8$ that are in the $(8_L,8_R)$ representation of ${…
We discuss the vacuum structure of QCD with two flavors of Wilson fermions. We derive two possible scenarios: (i) If the spectral density $ρ_U(λ,κ)$ of the overlap hamiltonian in a fixed background gauge field is not symmetric in $λ$, Hermiticity is violated and Hermiticity violation effects could influence numerical determinations of the $η$ meson mass if we are not near enough to the continuum limit, where Hermiticity should be recovered; (ii) otherwise we argue that, under certain assumptions, new phases appear beside the Aoki phase, which can be characterized by a nonvanishing vacuum expec…
We present an exact dynamical QCD simulation algorithm for the $O(a)$-improved Wilson fermion with odd number of flavors. Our algorithm is an extension of the non-Hermitian polynomials HMC algorithm proposed by Takaishi and de Forcrand previously. In our algorithm, the systematic errors caused by the polynomial approximation of the inverse of Dirac operator is removed by a noisy-Metropolis test. For one flavor quark it is achieved by taking the square root of the correction matrix explicitly. We test our algorithm for the case of $N_f=1+1$ on a moderately large lattice size ($16^3\times48$). T…
The QCD thermodynamics on the lattice provides fundamental theoretical grounds to analyze the various experimental data in relativistic heavy ion collisions. So far, most of the numerical simulations on the lattice have been performed by using the staggered-type fermion actions. Therefore it is important to carry out studies using different fermion formulations to test the uncertainties of the lattice QCD results. For this purpose, we perform systematic simulations of two-flavor QCD with an improved Wilson quark action to investigate the equation of state. We report the current status of our p…
Three-flavor QCD simulation with the $O(a)$-improved Wilson fermion action is made employing an exact fermion algorithm developed for odd number of quark flavors. For the plaquette gauge action, an unexpected first-order phase transition is found in the strong coupling regime ($β\lesssim$ 5.0) at relatively heavy quark masses ($m_{\mathrm{PS}}/m_{\mathrm{V}}\sim$ 0.74--0.87). Strong metastability persists on a large lattice of size $12^3\times 32$, which indicates that the transition has a bulk nature. The phase gap becomes smaller toward weaker couplings and vanishes at $β\simeq 5.0$, which c…
We study scaling behavior of a chiral order parameter performing a simulation of two-flavor QCD with improved Wilson quarks. It has been shown that the scaling behavior of the chiral order parameter defined by a Ward-Takahashi identity agrees with the scaling function of the three-dimensional O(4) spin model at zero chemical potential. We extend the scaling study to finite density QCD. Calculating derivatives of the chiral order parameter with respect to the chemical potential in two-flavor QCD, the scaling property of chiral phase transition is discussed in the low density region. We moreover…
An explicit solution is found for the most general independent correlation functions in lattice QCD$_2$ with Wilson action. The large-$N$ limit of these correlations may be used to reconstruct the eigenvalue distributions of Wilson loop operators for arbitrary loops. Properties of these spectral densities are discussed in the region $β<β_c={1\over 2}$.
We consider the effect of a non-zero lattice spacing on the low-energy effective theory of Wilson fermions with one flavor. Analytical results are given for both the chiral condensate and the microscopic spectral density of the Wilson Dirac operator. A subtle mechanism ensures that a constant chiral condensate is recovered, once the sum over sectors of fixed index is performed.
The phase structure of lattice QCD with two flavors and Wilson fermions is studied analytically. At $β=0$ we obtain rigorous lower and upper bounds for the critical hopping parameter $k_c(0)$ from a convergent hopping parameter expansion to infinite order. The result supports the value $k_c(0)=\frac{1}{4}$ observed in Monte Carlo simulations.
We study the curvature of the chiral transition/crossover line between the low-temperature hadronic phase and the high-temperature quark-gluon-plasma phase at low densities, performing simulations of two-flavor QCD with improved Wilson quarks. After confirming that the chiral order parameter defined by a Ward-Takahashi identity is consistent with the scaling of the O(4) universality class at zero chemical potential, we extend the scaling analysis to finite chemical potential to determine the curvature of the chiral transition/crossover line at low densities assuming the O(4) universality. To c…
We apply chiral perturbation theory to the pseudoscalar meson mass and decay constant data obtained in the PACS-CS Project toward 2+1 flavor lattice QCD simulations with the O(a)-improved Wilson quarks. We examine the existence of chiral logarithms in the quark mass range from m_{ud}=47 MeV down to 6 MeV on a (2.8 fm)^3 box with the lattice spacing a=0.09 fm. Several low energy constants are determined. We also discuss the magnitude of finite size effects based on chiral perturbation theory.
We use the transfer matrix formalism to derive non-perturbative sum rules in Wilson's lattice QCD with N_f flavours of quarks. The discretization errors on these identities are treated in detail. As an application, it is shown how the sum rules can be exploited to give improved estimates of the continuum spectrum and static potential.
We test the asymptotic scaling behavior of state-of-the-art simulations of QCD with two flavors of light Wilson fermions. This is done by matching $π$ and $ρ$ masses on lattices of size $16^3\times32$ and $8^3\times16$. We find that at $β=6/g^2=5.3$ matching is not possible over a range extending down to $β=3.5$. The large lattice data at $β=5.5$ matches the small lattice values at $β=4.9(1)$ leading to a shift $Δβ=0.6(1)$, considerably larger than the perturbative prediction of $0.45$. In both cases we conclude that the simulations are very far from the asymptotic scaling region.
We describe a new set of gauge configurations generated within the CLS effort. These ensembles have N_f=2+1 flavors of non-perturbatively improved Wilson fermions in the sea with the Luescher-Weisz action used for the gluons. Open boundary conditions in time are used to address the problem of topological freezing at small lattice spacings and twisted-mass reweighting for improved stability of the simulations. We give the bare parameters at which the ensembles have been generated and how these parameters have been chosen. Details of the algorithmic setup and its performance are presented as wel…
Polyakov loop correlations at finite temperature in two-flavor QCD are studied in lattice simulations with the RG-improved gluon action and the clover-improved Wilson quark action. From the simulations on a $16^3 \times 4$ lattice, we extract the free energies, the effective running coupling $g_{\rm eff}(T)$ and the Debye screening mass $m_D(T)$ for various color channels of heavy quark--quark and quark--anti-quark pairs above the critical temperature. The free energies are well approximated by the screened Coulomb form with the appropriate Casimir factors. The magnitude and the temperature de…
We analyse the leading logarithmic corrections to the $a^2$ scaling of lattice artefacts in QCD, following the seminal work of Balog, Niedermayer and Weisz in the O(n) non-linear sigma model. Limiting the discussion to contributions from the action, the leading logarithmic corrections can be determined by the anomalous dimensions of mass-dimension 6 operators. These operators form a minimal on-shell basis of the Symanzik Effective Theory. We present results for non-perturbatively O($a$) improved Wilson and Ginsparg-Wilson quarks.
We report on lattice QCD results for the thermodynamic equation of state of quark-gluon matter obtained with Nf=2 degenerate quark flavors. For the fermion field discretization we are using the Wilson-twisted mass prescription. Simulations have been carried out at three values of the bare quark masses corresponding to pion masses of 360, 430 and 640 MeV. We highlight the importance of a good control of the lattice cutoff dependence of the trace anomaly which we have studied at several values of the inverse temperature 1/T = a Nt with a time-like lattice extent up to Nt=12. We contrast our resu…
Stabilized Wilson fermions are a reformulation of Wilson clover fermions that incorporates several numerical stabilizing techniques, but also a local change of the fermion action - the original clover term being replaced with an exponentiated version of it. We intend to apply the stabilized Wilson fermions toolbox to the thermodynamics of QCD, starting on the $N_f=3$ symmetric line on the Columbia plot, and to compare the results with those obtained with other fermion discretizations.
The O(a^2) contributions to the chiral effective Lagrangian for lattice QCD with Wilson fermions are constructed. The results are generalized to partially quenched QCD with Wilson fermions as well as to the "mixed'' lattice theory with Wilson sea quarks and Ginsparg-Wilson valence quarks.
We perform an extensive study of autocorrelation of several observables in lattice QCD with two degenerate flavours of naive Wilson fermions and unimproved Wilson gauge action using DD-HMC algorithm. We show that (1) at a given lattice spacing, autocorrelation of topological susceptibility decreases with decreasing quark mass and autocorrelations of plaquette and Wilson loop do not increase with decreasing quark mass, (2) autocorrelation of topological susceptibility substantially increases with decreasing lattice spacing but autocorrelation of topological charge density correlator shows only …
We explore sea quark effects in the light hadron mass spectrum in a simulation of two-flavor QCD using the nonperturbatively O(a)-improved Wilson fermion action. In order to identify finite-size effects, light meson masses are measured on 12^3x48, 16^3x48 and 20^3x48 lattices with a~0.1 fm. On the largest lattice, where the finite-size effect is negligible, we find a significant increase of the strange vector meson mass compared to the quenched approximation. We also investigate the quark mass dependence of pseudoscalar meson masses and decay constants and test the consistency with (partially …
We present a first scaling test of twisted mass QCD with pure Wilson quarks for a twisting angle of pi/2. We have computed the vector meson mass and the pseudoscalar decay constant for different values of beta at fixed value of r_0 m_PS. The results obtained in the quenched approximation are compared with data for pure Wilson and non-perturbatively O(a) improved Wilson computations. We show that our results from Wilson twisted mass QCD show clearly reduced lattice spacing errors, consistent with O(a) improvement and without the need of any improvement terms added. These results thus provide nu…
We report on the status of our simulations of two-colour QCD with two flavours of Wilson quarks, at nonzero chemical potential and diquark source. Preliminary results are presented for the static quark potential, gluon propagator, and meson and diquark spectrum.
We report on a calculation of the light hadron spectrum and quark masses in three-flavor dynamical QCD using the non-perturbatively O(a)-improved Wilson quark action and a renormalization-group improved gauge action. Simulations are carried out on a 16^3 \times 32 lattice at β=1.9, where a^{-1} \simeq 2GeV, with 6 ud quark masses corresponding to m_{pi}/m_{rho} \simeq 0.64-0.77 and 2 s quark masses close to the physical value. We observe that the inclusion of dynamical strange quark brings the lattice QCD meson spectrum to good agreement with experiment. Dynamical strange quarks also lead to a…
We study the energy-momentum tensor and the equation of state as well as the chiral condensate in (2+1)-flavor QCD at the physical point applying the method of Makino and Suzuki based on the gradient flow. We adopt a nonperturbatively O(a)-improved Wilson quark action and the renormalization group-improved Iwasaki gauge action. At Lattice 2016, we have presented our preliminary results of our study in (2+1)-flavor QCD at a heavy u, d quark mass point. We now extend the study to the physical point and perform finite-temperature simulations in the range T \simeq 155--544 MeV (Nt = 4--14 includin…
Eigenvalues of a Wilson loop operator are gauge invariant and their distribution undergoes a transition at infinite N as the size of the loop is changed. We study this transition using the average characteristic polynomial associated with the Wilson loop operator. We derive the scaling function in a certain double scaling limit for two dimensional QCD and hypothesize that the transition in three and four dimensional QCD are in the same universality class. Numerical evidence for this hypothesisis provided in three dimensions
We present preliminary results from UKQCD simulations at light quark masses using two flavours of non-pertubatively improved Wilson fermions. We report on the performance of the standard HMC algorithm at these quark masses where m_pi/m_rho < 0.5 in comparison with simulations using improved staggered quarks.
