Finite Volume Corrections to the SU(3) Deconfining Temperature due to a Confined Exterior

TL;DR

This study investigates how finite volume effects and a colder exterior influence the deconfining temperature in SU(3) gauge theory, relevant for small quark-gluon plasma regions in heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces a double layered torus model to analyze finite volume corrections to the deconfining temperature with a colder exterior in SU(3) gauge theory.

Findings

Deconfining temperature depends on the surrounding colder temperature.

Results are consistent with SU(3) scaling for various lattice sizes.

Finite volume effects are significant in small deconfined regions.

Abstract

Deconfined regions in relativistic heavy ion collisions are limited to small volumes surrounded by a confined exterior. Using the geometry of a double layered torus, we keep an outside temperature slightly lower than the inside temperature, so that both regions are in the SU(3) scaling region. Deconfined volume sizes are chosen to be in a range typical for such volumes created at the BNL RHIC. Even with small temperature differences a dependence of the (pseudo) deconfining temperature on a colder surrounding temperature is clearly visible. For temporal lattice sizes Ntau=4, 6 and 8 we find consistency with SU(3) scaling behavior for the measured transition temperature signals.