The physics of eight flavours

TL;DR

This paper investigates eight-flavor QCD using lattice simulations, providing evidence that chiral symmetry remains broken at zero temperature, indicating that the conformal window starts above eight flavors.

Contribution

It offers the first lattice simulation evidence that eight-flavor QCD does not reach the conformal window, clarifying the phase structure of many-flavor QCD.

Findings

Chiral symmetry remains broken at zero temperature for Nf=8.

Confirms the conformal window begins above eight flavors.

Supports the phase diagram of QCD with many flavors.

Abstract

We study Quantum Chromodynamics with eight flavours by use of lattice simulations and present evidence that the theory still breaks chiral symmetry in the zero temperature, continuum limit. This confirms that the lower end of the conformal window of QCD lies above Nf = 8.