Thermodynamics of SU(3) gauge theory at fixed lattice spacing

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermodynamics of SU(3) gauge theory using a fixed scale lattice approach, enabling precise thermal effect isolation and computational efficiency in equation of state calculations.

Contribution

It introduces and tests a fixed scale lattice method for studying SU(3) thermodynamics, reducing computational costs and isolating thermal effects more effectively.

Findings

Determined the equation of state for SU(3) gauge theory.

Calculated the critical temperature at fixed lattice scales.

Analyzed static quark free energy at fixed scale.

Abstract

We study thermodynamics of SU(3) gauge theory at fixed scales on the lattice, where we vary temperature by changing the temporal lattice size N_t=(Ta_t)^{-1}. In the fixed scale approach, finite temperature simulations are performed on common lattice spacings and spatial volumes. Consequently, we can isolate thermal effects in observables from other uncertainties, such as lattice artifact, renormalization factor, and spatial volume effect. Furthermore, in the EOS calculations, the fixed scale approach is able to reduce computational costs for zero temperature subtraction and parameter search to find lines of constant physics, which are demanding in full QCD simulations. As a test of the approach, we study the thermodynamics of the SU(3) gauge theory on isotropic and anisotropic lattices. In addition to the equation of state, we calculate the critical temperature and the static quark free energy at a fixed scale.