Investigations on the deconfining phase transition in QCD

TL;DR

This paper studies the nature of the deconfining phase transition in QCD and pure gauge theories, finding evidence for a weak first order transition in both cases through finite size scaling analysis.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the order of the deconfining transition in full QCD with two flavors, challenging previous expectations of a crossover.

Findings

Pure gauge theory exhibits a weak first order transition.

Full QCD with two flavors shows signs of a weak first order transition.

Finite size scaling analysis supports the first order transition hypothesis.

Abstract

We investigate the deconfining phase transition in SU(3) pure gauge theory and in full QCD with two flavors of staggered fermions by means of a gauge invariant thermal partition functional. In the pure gauge case our finite size scaling analysis is in agreement with the well known weak first order phase transition. In the case of 2 flavors full QCD we find that the phase transition is consistent with weak first order, contrary to the expectation of a crossover for not too large quark masses.