Chiral phase transition of three flavor QCD with nonzero magnetic field using standard staggered fermions

TL;DR

This study investigates how external magnetic fields influence the chiral phase transition in three-flavor QCD using lattice simulations with staggered fermions, revealing magnetic catalysis effects and shifts in transition temperatures.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the magnetic field dependence of chiral and deconfinement transitions in three-flavor QCD with standard staggered fermions.

Findings

Magnetic catalysis observed in light quark mass regime across all temperatures.

Phase transition strength increases with magnetic field.

Deconfinement temperature shifts under magnetic field for certain quark masses.

Abstract

Lattice simulations for (2+1)-flavor QCD with external magnetic field demonstrated that the quark mass is one of the important parameters responsible for the (inverse) magnetic catalysis. We discuss the dependences of chiral condensates and susceptibilities, the Polyakov loop on the magnetic field and quark mass in three degenerate flavor QCD. The lattice simulations are performed using standard staggered fermions and the plaquette action with spatial sizes Ns = 16 and 24 and a fixed temporal size Nt = 4. The value of the quark masses are chosen such that the system undergoes a first order chiral phase transition and crossover with zero magnetic field. We find that in light mass regime, the quark chiral condensate undergoes magnetic catalysis in the whole temperature region and the phase transition tend to become stronger as the magnetic field increases. In crossover regime, deconfinement transition temperature is shifted by the magnetic field when quark mass ma is less than 0.4. The lattice cutoff effects are also discussed.