2008/07/31 by Barak Bringoltz, Stephen R. Sharpe
Physics and Astronomy · #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.stat-mech #hep-lat #physics.comp-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.074503
published as Phys.Rev.D78:074503,2008 · 40 pages, 13 figures. Added discussions on the way the Wang-Landau algorithm that we use differs from other implementations in the literature, added references, corrected typos, published version
openalex publication_date 2008/10/03 · arxiv created 2008/10/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We implement the Wang-Landau algorithm in the context of SU(N) lattice gauge theories. We study the quenched, reduced version of the lattice theory and calculate its density of states for N=20, 30, 40, 50. We introduce a variant of the original algorithm in which the weight function used in the update does not asymptote to a fixed function, but rather continues to have small fluctuations that enhance tunneling. We formulate a method to evaluate the errors in the density of states, and use the result to calculate the dependence of the average action density and the specific heat on the `t Hooft coupling \ensuremathλ. This allows us to locate the coupling \ensuremathλt at which a strongly first-order transition occurs in the system. For N=20 and 30 we compare our results with those obtained using Ferrenberg-Swendsen multihistogram reweighting and find agreement with errors of 0.2% or less. Extrapolating our results to N=\ensuremath∞, we find (\ensuremathλt)^\ensuremath-1=0.3148(2). We remark on the significance of this result for the validity of quenched large-N reduction of SU(N) lattice gauge theories.