Configurational Temperature in the 3D XY Model

Abstract

We investigate the configurational temperature estimator as a diagnostic tool for Monte Carlo and Langevin simulations of the three-dimensional XY model with an imaginary chemical potential. This estimator depends only on the field configurations. It provides a stringent internal consistency check for numerical sampling algorithms. We perform simulations using both real Langevin dynamics and the Metropolis Monte Carlo algorithm on an $8^3$ lattice across a range of coupling values, $β= 0.2 - 0.7$. Our results for the action density are in excellent agreement with strong-coupling expansion predictions at small $β$, providing an important validation of both simulation approaches. The measured value of the configurational temperature estimator shows good agreement with its expected value of unity in the symmetric phase. However, systematic deviations appear in the ordered phase. We attribute these deviations primarily to finite-size effects and discretization artifacts associated with the relatively small lattice volume. Our results demonstrate that the configurational temperature estimator provides a valuable diagnostic for assessing thermalization and algorithmic correctness in lattice field theory simulations. Such diagnostics are particularly important in preparation for studies at real chemical potential, where sign problems arise and conventional validation methods become less reliable.