The Schr\"odinger functional running coupling with staggered fermions and its application to many flavor QCD

We discuss the Schr\"odinger functional in lattice QCD with staggered fermions and relate it, in the classical continuum limit, to the Schr\"odinger functional regularized with Wilson fermions. We compute the strong coupling constant defined via the Schr\"odinger functional with staggered fermions at one loop and show that it agrees with the continuum running coupling constant in the Schr\"odinger functional formalism. We compute this running coupling in the ``weak coupling phase'' of many flavor QCD numerically at several values of the bare coupling and for several system sizes from $L/a=4$ to 12. The results indicate that the $\beta$-function for 16 flavors has the opposite sign than for few flavor QCD, in agreement with a recent claim, and with the perturbative prediction.Comment: 3 pages with 2 ps figures; to appear in the proceedings of Lattice '97, Edinburgh, Scotland, July 22--26, 199

Wilson chiral perturbation theory, Wilson-Dirac operator eigenvalues and clover improvement

Chiral perturbation theory for eigenvalue distributions, and equivalently random matrix theory, has recently been extended to include lattice effects for Wilson fermions. We test the predictions by comparison to eigenvalue distributions of the Hermitian Wilson-Dirac operator from pure gauge (quenched) ensembles. We show that the lattice effects are diminished when using clover improvement for the Dirac operator. We demonstrate that the leading Wilson low-energy constants associated with Wilson (clover) fermions can be determined using spectral information of the respective Dirac operator at finite volume.Comment: Presented at "Xth Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum," October 2012, Garching, Germany. To appear as PoS (Confinement X) 07

Microscopic Spectrum of the Wilson Dirac Operator

We calculate the leading contribution to the spectral density of the Wilson Dirac operator using chiral perturbation theory where volume and lattice spacing corrections are given by universal scaling functions. We find analytical expressions for the spectral density on the scale of the average level spacing, and introduce a chiral Random Matrix Theory that reproduces these results. Our work opens up a novel approach to the infinite volume limit of lattice gauge theory at finite lattice spacing and new ways to extract coefficients of Wilson chiral perturbation theory.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, refs added, version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

The zeros of the QCD partition function

We establish a relationship between the zeros of the partition function in the complex mass plane and the spectral properties of the Dirac operator in QCD. This relation is derived within the context of chiral Random Matrix Theory and applies to QCD when chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken. Further, we introduce and examine the concept of normal modes in chiral spectra. Using this formalism we study the consequences of a finite Thouless energy for the zeros of the partition function. This leads to the demonstration that certain features of the QCD partition function are universal.Comment: 13 page

Screening and Deconfinement of Sources in Finite Temperature SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory

Deconfinement and screening of higher-representation sources in finite-temperature $SU(2)$ lattice gauge theory is investigated by both analytical and numerical means. The effective Polyakov-line action at strong coupling is simulated by an efficient cluster-updating Monte Carlo algorithm for the case of $d\!=\!4$ dimensions. The results compare very favourably with an improved mean-field solution. The limit $d\!\to\!\infty$ of the $SU(2)$ theory is shown to be highly singular as far as critical behaviour is concerned. In that limit the leading amplitudes of higher representation Polyakov lines vanish at strong coupling, and subleading exponents become dominant. Each of the higher-representation sources then effectively carry with them their own critical exponents.Comment: 13pages+7figures, CERN-TH-7222/94 One reference added, else unchange

Finite-Volume Scaling of the Quenched Chiral Condensate

In the large-volume limit $V\to\infty$ with $V << 1/m_{\pi}^4$ the mass-dependent chiral condensate is predicted to satisfy exact finite-volume scaling laws that fall into three major universality classes. We test these analytical predictions with staggered fermions and overlap fermions in gauge field sectors of fixed topological charge $\nu$.Comment: Talk at Lattice99(topology), 3 page

Exact Vacuum Energy of Orbifold Lattice Theories

We investigate the orbifold lattice theories constructed from supersymmetric Yang-Mills matrix theories (mother theories) with four and eight supercharges. We show that the vacuum energy of these theories does not receive any quantum correction perturbatively.Comment: 14 pages, no figure, LaTeX2e, typos corrected, errors in references corrected, comments adde

Effects of dynamical quarks on the spectrum of the Wilson Dirac operator

Effects of dynamical quarks on the microscopic spectrum of the Wilson Dirac operator are analyzed by means of effective field theory. We consider the distributions of the real modes of the Wilson Dirac operator as well as the spectrum of the Hermitian Wilson Dirac operator, and work out the case of one flavor in all detail. In contrast to the quenched case, the theory has a mild sign problem that manifests itself by giving a spectral density that is not positive definite as the spectral gap closes.Comment: 7 pages 3 figures. Talk given at the XXVIII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2010), Villasimius, Italy, June 201

Individual Eigenvalue Distributions for the Wilson Dirac Operator

We derive the distributions of individual eigenvalues for the Hermitian Wilson Dirac Operator D5 as well as for real eigenvalues of the Wilson Dirac Operator DW. The framework we provide is valid in the epsilon regime of chiral perturbation theory for any number of flavours Nf and for non-zero low energy constants W6, W7, W8. It is given as a perturbative expansion in terms of the k-point spectral density correlation functions and integrals thereof, which in some cases reduces to a Fredholm Pfaffian. For the real eigenvalues of DW at fixed chirality nu this expansion truncates after at most nu terms for small lattice spacing "a". Explicit examples for the distribution of the first and second eigenvalue are given in the microscopic domain as a truncated expansion of the Fredholm Pfaffian for quenched D5, where all k-point densities are explicitly known from random matrix theory. For the real eigenvalues of quenched DW at small "a" we illustrate our method by the finite expansion of the corresponding Fredholm determinant of size nu.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures; v2: typos corrected, refs added and discussion of W6 and W7 extende