Finite-volume analysis and universal scaling signatures near the chiral phase transition in (2+1)-flavor QCD

Fakultät für Physik, Universität Bielefeld, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany

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Published online: 17 April 2026

Abstract

For quantifying the universal properties of the chiral phase transition in QCD through numerical calculations on a discrete space-time lattice, one needs to perform controlled extrapolations to the continuum and infinite-volume limits followed by an extrapolation to the limit of massless light quarks. We discuss here, the results on the latter two limits at still finite lattice spacings. We use here for chiral symmetry breaking, an improved order parameter free of additive and multiplicative divergences and we analyse its volume and quark mass dependence. Comparing to the expected universal behavior in the chiral limit, we quantify deviations from the universal finite-size scaling behavior as function of the light to strange quark mass ratio.