Transition temperature in QCD with physical light and strange quark masses

Abstract

We present results from a calculation of the transition temperature in QCD with two light and one heavier (strange) quark mass on lattices with temporal extent N_t =4 and 6. Calculations with improved staggered fermions have been performed with a strange quark mass fixed close to its physical value and for various light to strange quark mass ratios that correspond to light pseudo-scalar masses in the range (150-500) MeV. From a combined extrapolation to the chiral (m_l -> 0) and continuum (aT -> 0) limits we obtain for the transition temperature at the physical point T_c = 192(7)(4) MeV. We also present first results from an ongoing calculation of the QCD equation of state with almost realistic light and strange quark masses.