Critical behavior of the compact 3d U(1) gauge theory on isotropic lattices

We report on the computation of the critical point of the deconfinement phase transition, critical indices and the string tension in the compact three dimensional U(1) lattice gauge theory at finite temperatures. The critical indices govern the behavior across the deconfinement phase transition in the pure gauge U(1) model and are generally expected to coincide with the critical indices of the two-dimensional XY model. We studied numerically the U(1) model for N_t=8 on lattices with spatial extension ranging from L=32 to L=256. Our determination of the infinite volume critical point on the lattice with N_t=8 differs substantially from the pseudo-critical coupling at L=32, found earlier in the literature and implicitly assumed as the onset value of the deconfined phase. The critical index $\nu$ computed from the scaling of the pseudo-critical couplings with the extension of the spatial lattice agrees well with the XY value $\nu$=1/2. On the other hand, the index $\eta$ shows large deviation from the expected universal value. The possible reasons of such behavior are discussed in details.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures; version accepted for publication on J. Stat. Mech

Deconfinement in QCD with dynamical quarks

We study the phase structure of full QCD within the canonical ensemble with respect to triality in a lattice formulation. The procedure for the calculation of the effective potentials in this case is given. As an example we consider the three dimensional SU(2) gauge model at finite temperatures in the strong coupling region. The potential exhibits a deconfinement phase transition unlike the similar potential obtained in the grand canonical ensemble which demonstrates explicit Z(N) symmetry breaking at any temperature. Furthermore, we investigate the effective potential with the chiral condensate included. In contradiction to other authors, we find chiral symmetry restoration in all triality sectors. In the scheme with massless staggered fermions we observe chiral symmetry restoration accompanying a deconfinement phase transition of first order. Above the critical point, besides two Z(2) symmetric "deconfining" vacua there exists a metastable "confining" vacuum in a wide region of parameters. Such a picture could be interpreted as an indication on a mixed state of hadrons and quarks in the vicinity of the critical line.Comment: 17 pages with 6 eps. figures include