1 research outputs found
Two-Flavor Staggered Fermion Thermodynamics at N_t = 12
We present results of an ongoing study of the nature of the high temperature
crossover in QCD with two light fermion flavors. These results are obtained
with the conventional staggered fermion action at the smallest lattice spacing
to date---approximately 0.1 fm. Of particular interest are a study of the
temperature of the crossover a determination of the induced baryon charge and
baryon susceptibility, the scalar susceptibility, and the chiral order
parameter, used to test models of critical behavior associated with chiral
symmetry restoration. From our new data and published results for N_t = 4, 6,
and 8, we determine the QCD magnetic equation of state from the chiral order
parameter using O(4) and mean field critical exponents and compare it with the
corresponding equation of state obtained from an O(4) spin model and mean field
theory. We also present a scaling analysis of the Polyakov loop, suggesting a
temperature dependent ``constituent quark free energy.''Comment: LaTeX 25 pages, 15 Postscript figure