Low temperature limit of lattice QCD

Abstract

We study the low temperature limit of lattice QCD by using a reduction formula for a fermion determinant. The reduction formula, which is useful in finite density lattice QCD simulations, contains a reduced matrix defined as the product of $N_t$ block-matrices. It is shown that eigenvalues of the reduced matrix follows a scaling law with regard to the temporal lattice size $N_t$. The $N_t$ scaling law leads to two types of expressions of the fermion determinant in the low temperature limit; one is for small quark chemical potentials, and the other is for larger quark chemical potentials.