Toward the QCD $\beta$ Function with Dynamical Wilson Fermions

Abstract

We present data for the scaling behavior of lattice QCD with two flavors of light Wilson fermions. This is done by matching $\pi$ n and $\rho$ masses at the two lattice sizes of $16^3\times32 $ and $8^3\times16$. We find that at $\beta=6/g^2\equiv5.3$ the matching does not occur over a range extending down to $\beta=3.5$. For $\beta=5.5$ matching may be achieved at $\beta=4.8-4.9$, leading to a $\Delta \beta =0.6-0.7$ which is higher than the perturbative 2-loop value of 0.45. In both cases we conclude that the simulations are very far from the perturbative scaling region.