Critical point and scale setting in SU(3) plasma: An update

Understand

We explore a method developed in statistical physics which has been argued to have exponentially small finite-volume effects, in order to determine the critical temperature Tc of pure SU(3) gauge theory close to the continuum limit.

• The method allows us to estimate the critical coupling betac of the Wilson action for temporal extents up to Nt ~ 20 with < 0.1% uncertainties.
• Making use of the scale setting parameters r0 and sqrt{t0} in the same range of beta-values, these results lead to the independent continuum extrapolations Tc r0 = 0.7457(45) and Tc sqrt{t0} = 0.2489(14), with the latter originating from a more convincing fit.
• Inserting a conversion of r0 from literature (unfortunately with much larger errors) yields Tc / LambdaMSbar = 1.24(10).