53575170
Eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the staggered Dirac operator at finite temperature
We examine the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the staggered Dirac operator on thermal ensembles created in QCD with two flavors of staggered quarks. We see that across the phase transition a gap opens in the spectrum. For finite volume lattices in the low-temperature phase the eigenvectors are extended, but generic field configurations in the high temperature phase give rise to localized eigenstates. We examine measures of the stability of such localization and find that at finite volumes localization occurs through Mott's mechanism of the formation of mobility edges. However, the band gap between the localized and extended states seem to scale to zero in the limit of large volume.
17443615
Lattice QCD for RHIC
I briefly introduce the methods by which lattice QCD predictions for RHIC are obtained. Next I deal with lattice determinations of strangeness production and event-to-event fluctuations of conserved quantities. I also present a new diagrammatic method for computing derivatives with respect to chemical potentials, and conclude with discussions of some tests of thermal perturbation theory which follow.
121387686
Hybrid Monte Carlo simulations of a two-dimensional gauge theory
Through a study of the dynamics of the two-dimensional U(1) pure gauge theory we find exponential slowing down in barrier penetration problems. We verify that the dynamical critical exponent in HMC can be tuned exactly to 1, and that normal and gauge fixed updates have equal cost.
119431013
A precise determination of T_c in QCD from scaling
Existing lattice data on the QCD phase transition are analyzed in renormalized perturbation theory. In quenched QCD it is found that T_c scales for lattices with only 3 time slices, and that T_c/Lambda_msbar=1.15 \pm 0.05. A preliminary estimate in QCD with two flavours of dynamical quarks shows that this ratio depends on the quark mass. For realistic quark masses we estimate T_c/Lambda_msbar=0.49 \pm 0.02. We also investigate the equation of state in quenched QCD at 1-loop order in renormalised perturbation theory.
123004962
Flavour degrees of freedom and the transition temperature in QCD
We study the finite temperature transition in QCD with four flavours of dynamical quarks. Our simulation is performed on an 8×16 3 lattice for quarks of mass ma=0.01. At the coupling β c =5.15, we find long-lived metastable states, as well as an abrupt change in the entropy density, suggesting a first order phase transition. Using presently available results from corresponding calculations of the hadron masses and the chiral condensate, this gives us a transition temperature T c ≅100 MeV, which is a factor two lower than the transition temperature found in quenched QCD.
122166973
The phase diagram of QCD: methods and logic of the comparison of experiments and theory
Abstract A small review of the phase diagram of QCD is presented. This is followed by a discussion of the conditions under which experimental data on the fluctuations of conserved quantities in heavy-ion collisions can be treated in the grand canonical ensemble. A robust method for detecting the presence of a nearby critical point in experiments is given. There is a short discussion of the need for non-Gaussian error analysis.
18664179
Parametrizing yields of nuclear multifragmentation
We consider a model where, for a finite disintegrating system, yields of composites can be calculated to arbitrary accuracy. An analytic answer for yields is also known in the thermodynamic limit. In the range of temperature and density considered in this work, the model has a phase transition. This phase transition is first order. The analytic expression for yields of composites, in the thermodynamic limit, does not conform to the expression $ =a^{-\tau}f(a^{\sigma} (T-T_c))$ where, the usual identification would be that $T_c$ is the critical temperature and $\tau,\sigma$ are critical exponents. Nonetheless, for finite systems, we try to fit the yields with the above expression. A minimisation procedure is adopted to get the parameters $T_c,\tau$ and $\sigma$. While deviations from the formula are not negligible, one might believe that the deviations are consistent with the corrections attributable to finite particle number effects and might then conclude that one has deduced at least approximately the values of critical parameters. This exercise thus points to difficulties of trying to extract critical parameters from data on nuclear disintegration. An interesting result is that the value of $T_c$ deduced from the ``best'' fit is very close to the temperature at which the first order phase transition occurs in the model. The yields calculated in this model can also be fitted quite well by a parametrisation derived from a droplet model.
120400691
Quantization of higher-spin fields with indefinite metric
Quantization of fields of spins 3/2 and 2 is carried out by decomposing them into simpler fields and using an indefinite metric. In the resulting ghost-field formalism, nonphysical states are eliminated by means of supplementary conditions, and the consistency of these conditions in the presence of interaction is established.
17387019
Inhomogeneous nucleation in a quark-hadron phase transition
The effect of subcritical hadron bubbles on a first-order quark-hadron phase transition is studied. These subcritical hadron bubbles are created due to thermal fluctuations, and can introduce a finite amount of phase mixing (quark phase mixed with hadron phase) even at and above the critical temperature. For reasonable choices of surface tension and correlation length, as obtained from the lattice QCD calculations, we show that the amount of phase mixing at the critical temperature remains below the percolation threshold. Thus, as the system cools below the critical temperature, the transition proceeds through the nucleation of critical-size hadron bubbles from a metastable quark-gluon phase (QGP), within an inhomogeneous background populated by an equilibrium distribution of subcritical hadron bubbles. The inhomogeneity of the medium results in a substantial reduction of the nucleation barrier for critical bubbles. Using the corrected nucleation barrier, we estimate the amount of supercooling for different parameters controlling the phase transition, and briefly discuss its implications to cosmology and heavy-ion collisions.
121995970
A check on the geometrical assumptions in models of relativistic heavy ion collisions
Abstract The results of a recent experiment can be used to test clearly the geometrical assumptions of a variety of models for heavy ion collisions. Frequently used models are seen to fail quantitatively; the data show the need for incorporating nuclear transparency; both multiple and clean knockout collisions are needed.
118657389
Four zero texture fermion mass matrices in SO(10) GUT
We attempt the integration of the phenomenologically successful four zero texture of fermion mass matrices with the renormalizable SO(10) GUT. The resulting scenario is found to be highly predictive. Firstly, we examine the phenomenological implications of a class of the lepton mass matrices with parallel texture structures and obtain interesting constraints on the parameters of the charged lepton and the neutrino mass matrices. We combine these phenomenological constraints with the constraints obtained from SO(10) GUT to reduce the number of the free parameters and to further constrain the allowed ranges of the free parameters. The solar/atmospheric mixing angles obtained in this analysis are in fairly good agreement with the data.