Discretization Effects in the $\epsilon$ Domain of QCD

Abstract

At nonzero lattice spacing the QCD partition function with Wilson quarks undergoes either a second order phase transition to the Aoki phase for decreasing quark mass or shows a first order jump when the quark mass changes sign. We discuss these phase transitions in terms of Wilson Dirac spectra and show that the first order scenario can only occur in the presence of dynamical quarks while in the quenched case we can only have a transition to the Aoki phase. The exact microscopic spectral density of the non-Hermitian Wilson Dirac operator with dynamical quarks is discussed as well. We conclude with some remarks on discretization effects for the overlap Dirac operator.