Nuclear Physics Colloquium

Venue: Physics Building, Max-von-Laue-Str. 1, Seminar Room PHYS 2.116
Time: Thursday, June 23, 4:30 pm (s.t.)
Contact: hees@fias.uni-frankfurt.de

QCD thermodynamics and finite temperature spectroscopy with two flavours of Wilson fermions

Bastian Brandt (ITP Goethe University Frankfurt)

I present an overview of our project to investigate the properties and the phase diagram of QCD at finite temperature (but zero density) with two dynamical flavours of $\mathrm{O}(a)$-improved Wilson fermions. Our simulations employ fine lattices, ensuring that discretisation effects are small. I will start with the discussion of our results concerning the order of the transition in the chiral limit. In this case we use lattices at a fixed temporal extent of 16, vary the volume between 32³ and 64³ to investigate finite size scaling and currently have three pion masses between 200 and 600 MeV at our disposal. Our main tool to extract information about the chiral limit is the investigation of the strength of the anomalous breaking of the $\mathrm{U}_{\mathrm{A}}(1)$ symmetry at $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ via screening masses. Next, I will summarise our studies concerning transport properties and spectral properties of QCD in the vicinity of the transition. In particular, we investigate the properties of the pion in the approach to $T_{\mathrm{c}}$, the properties of the rho meson as it crosses $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ and determine the electrical conductivity across the transition.