Continuum extrapolation of the critical endpoint in 4-flavor QCD with Wilson-Clover fermions

Abstract

We report our study on the critical endpoint of the finite temperature phase transition in 4-flavor QCD with Wilson-Clover fermions. Using the kurtosis intersection method, we determined the critical endpoint on lattices with $N_t$ = 4, 6 and 8. Our continuum extrapolated results show that the pseudo-scalar meson mass at the critical endpoint, $m_\mathrm{PS,E}$, for 4-flavor is clearly larger than that for 3-flavor. We also compared our results to those with staggered fermions and found that $m_\mathrm{PS,E}/T_E$ for 4-flavor with Wilson fermions might remain finite even in the continuum limit in contrast to that with staggered fermions, where $m_\mathrm{PS,E}/T_E$ is very close to zero, which suggests that the difference between Wilson and staggered fermions is at least not due to the rooting.