The QCD phase diagram for three-flavor Möbius domain-wall fermions

Abstract

We investigate the phase transition of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) with three degenerate quark flavors at zero baryon chemical potential. Using Möbius domain-wall fermions as the lattice fermion formulation, we ensure excellent chiral symmetry preservation. Our simulations are performed at three different temporal lattice extents, $N_{t}=6, 8, 12$, with a fixed lattice spacing $a=0.1361(20)$ fm, corresponding to temperatures of 242(4), 181(3), and 121(2) MeV, respectively. We explore a range of quark masses and spatial volumes with aspect ratios $N_{s}/N_{t}$ spanning from 2 to 4. By analyzing the mass and volume dependencies of the plaquette, plaquette susceptibility, chiral condensate, chiral susceptibilities, and Binder cumulant, we identify the pseudocritical transition quark masses from our largest lattice volumes. For $N_t=6$, this is 184(10) MeV (determined from the plaquette susceptibility). For $N_t=8$ and 12, the transition points vary slightly depending on whether the total or disconnected chiral susceptibility is used, yielding ranges of 36(1)-39.1(9) MeV and 3.5(3)-3.7(2) MeV, respectively, in the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ scheme at a scale of $μ=2$ GeV. The negligible volume dependence at $N_t=6$ and 8, combined with finite-size scaling analysis at $N_t=12$ revealing volume growth significantly weaker than expected for a first- or second-order phase transition, points to a continuous crossover at these specific quark mass points. Additionally, we study the effects of residual chiral symmetry breaking on the chiral condensate and chiral susceptibilities using two different values of $L_s$.