Anderson Localization in high temperature QCD: background configuration properties and Dirac eigenmodes

We investigate the properties of the background gauge field configurations that act as disorder for the Anderson localization mechanism in the Dirac spectrum of QCD at high temperatures. We compute the eigenmodes of the M\"obius domain-wall fermion operator on configurations generated for the $SU(3)$ gauge theory with two flavors of fermions, in the temperature range $[0.9,1.9]T_c$. We identify the source of localization of the eigenmodes with gauge configurations that are self-dual and support negative fluctuations of the Polyakov loop $P_L$, in the high temperature sea of $P_L\sim 1$. The dependence of these observations on the boundary conditions of the valence operator is studied. We also investigate the spatial overlap of the left-handed and right-handed projected eigenmodes in correlation with the localization and the corresponding eigenvalue. We discuss an interpretation of the results in terms of monopole-instanton structures.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables, minor corrections and typo

Finite size phase transitions in QCD with adjoint fermions

We perform a lattice investigation of QCD with three colors and 2 flavors of Dirac (staggered) fermions in the adjoint representation, defined on a 4d space with one spatial dimension compactified, and study the phase structure of the theory as a function of the size Lc of the compactified dimension. We show that four different phases take place, corresponding to different realizations of center symmetry: two center symmetric phases, for large or small values of Lc, separated by two phases in which center symmetry is broken in two different ways; the dependence of these results on the quark mass is discussed. We study also chiral properties and how they are affected by the different realizations of center symmetry; chiral symmetry, in particular, stays spontaneously broken at the phase transitions and may be restored at much lower values of the compactification radius. Our results could be relevant to a recently proposed conjecture of volume indepedence of QCD with adjoint fermions in the large Nc limit.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures; extended discussion about the chiral limit and the chiral properties; 2 figures and references adde

Partial restoration of chiral symmetry in the color flux tube

Using the quark eigenmodes computed on the lattice with the overlap-Dirac operator, we investigate the spatial distribution of the chiral condensate around static color sources corresponding to quark-antiquark and three-quark systems. A flux structure of chromo fields appears in the presence of such color charges. The magnitude of the chiral condensate is reduced inside the color flux, which implies partial restoration of chiral symmetry inside hadrons. Taking a static baryon source in a periodic box as a toy model of nuclear matter, we estimate the magnitude of the chiral symmetry restoration as a function of baryon matter density.Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, published version in Phys. Rev.

QCD simulations with staggered fermions on GPUs

We report on our implementation of the RHMC algorithm for the simulation of lattice QCD with two staggered flavors on Graphics Processing Units, using the NVIDIA CUDA programming language. The main feature of our code is that the GPU is not used just as an accelerator, but instead the whole Molecular Dynamics trajectory is performed on it. After pointing out the main bottlenecks and how to circumvent them, we discuss the obtained performances. We present some preliminary results regarding OpenCL and multiGPU extensions of our code and discuss future perspectives.Comment: 22 pages, 14 eps figures, final version to be published in Computer Physics Communication

The Roberge-Weiss endpoint in N_f = 2 QCD

We present the results of extensive simulations regarding the critical behavior at the endpoint of the Roberge-Weiss transition for N_f = 2 QCD. We confirm early evidence, presented in arXiv:0909.0254, according to which the Roberge-Weiss endpoint is first order in the limit of large or small quark masses, and second order for intermediate masses. A systematic study of the transition strength as a function of the quark mass in the first order regions, permits us to estimate the tricritical values of the quark mass separating the second order region from the first order ones.Comment: 10 pages, 20 figures. References and figures updated. Matches the published versio

Staggered fermions simulations on GPUs

We present our implementation of the RHMC algorithm for staggered fermions on Graphics Processing Units using the NVIDIA CUDA programming language. While previous studies exclusively deal with the Dirac matrix inversion problem, our code performs the complete MD trajectory on the GPU. After pointing out the main bottlenecks and how to circumvent them, we discuss the performance of our code.Comment: Poster presented at the XXVIII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, June 14-19, 2010, Villasimius, Sardinia Ital

Topological susceptibility in 2+1-flavor QCD with chiral fermions

We compute the topological susceptibility $\chi_t$ of 2+1-flavor lattice QCD with dynamical M\"obius domain-wall fermions, whose residual mass is kept at 1 MeV or smaller. In our analysis, we focus on the fluctuation of the topological charge density in a "slab" sub-volume of the simulated lattice, as proposed by Bietenholz et al. The quark mass dependence of our results agrees well with the prediction of the chiral perturbation theory, from which the chiral condensate is extracted. Combining the results for the pion mass $M_\pi$ and decay constant $F_\pi$, we obtain $\chi_t$ = 0.227(02)(11)$M_\pi^2 F_\pi^2$ at the physical point, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, talk given at the 35th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 18-24 June 2017, Granada, Spai