SU(3) Deconfining Phase Transition in a Box with Cold Boundaries

TL;DR

This paper investigates the SU(3) deconfining phase transition within a finite volume lattice gauge theory, focusing on boundary conditions modeling a cold exterior and analyzing their impact on phase transition scaling and finite-volume corrections.

Contribution

It introduces boundary conditions to simulate a cold exterior in SU(3) lattice gauge theory and studies their effects on phase transition scaling and finite-volume corrections.

Findings

Boundary conditions influence the deconfining transition in finite volumes.

Finite-volume corrections are significant and comparable to quark effects.

Corrections persist in the continuum limit and are estimated for volumes of 5-10 fermi.

Abstract

Deconfined regions created in heavy ion collisions are bordered by the confined phase. We discuss boundary conditions (BCs) to model a cold exterior. Monte Carlo simulations of pure SU(3) lattice gauge theory with thus inspired BCs show scaling. Corrections to usual results survive in the finite volume continuum limit and we estimate them in a range from L=5-10 fermi as function of the volume size $L^3$. In magnitude these corrections are comparable to those obtained by including quarks.