Fermionic boundary conditions and the finite temperature transition of QCD

TL;DR

This paper investigates how changing fermionic boundary conditions affects the finite temperature transition in lattice QCD, revealing insensitivity at low temperatures and a significant response above the phase transition.

Contribution

It introduces a study of boundary condition effects in both quenched and dynamical lattice QCD, highlighting their impact on spectral properties across the phase transition.

Findings

Spectral quantities are insensitive to boundary conditions at low temperatures.

A non-trivial response to boundary condition variation appears in the deconfined phase.

First dynamical results compare ensemble behaviors below and above the transition.

Abstract

Finite temperature lattice QCD is probed by varying the temporal boundary conditions of the fermions. We develop the emerging physical behavior in a study of the quenched case and subsequently present first results for a fully dynamical calculation comparing ensembles below and above the phase transition. We show that for low temperature spectral quantities of the Dirac operator are insensitive to boundary conditions, while in the deconfined phase a non-trivial response to a variation of the boundary conditions sets in.