2007/01/31 by Alexei Bazavov, Bernd A. Berg · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-lat #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.76.014502
published as Phys.Rev.D76:014502,2007 · A section about boundary conditions has been added. Extended MC calculations. 8 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2007/03/19 · openalex publication_date 2007/07/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In lattice gauge theory (LGT) equilibrium simulations of QCD are usually performed with periodic boundary conditions (BCs). In contrast, deconfined regions created in heavy ion collisions are bordered by the confined phase. Here we discuss BCs in LGT with respect to their suitability to model a cold exterior of the lattice volume. Subsequently, we perform Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of pure SU(3) LGT with a thus inspired simple change of BCs using volumes of a size comparable to those typically encountered in the BNL relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) experiment. Corrections to the usual LGT results survive in the finite volume continuum limit. We estimate them as a function of the volume size for the temporal extensions N_\ensuremathτ=4 and 6 of the lattice and find that the results collapse to one curve when the previously established SU(3) scaling relation for the Wilson action is used. In magnitude the corrections found are comparable to those of including quarks. As observables we use a pseudocritical temperature, which rises opposite to the effect of quarks, and the width of the transition, which broadens similar to the effect of quarks.