We compute the low-lying spectrum of the staggered Dirac operator above and below the finite temperature phase transition in both quenched QCD and in dynamical four flavor QCD. In both cases we find, in the high temperature phase, a density with close to square root behavior, $rho(lambda) sim (lambda-lambda_0)^{1/2}$. In the quenched simulations we find, in addition, a volume independent tail of small eigenvalues extending down to zero. In the dynamical simulations we also find a tail, decreasing with decreasing mass, at the small end of the spectrum. However, the tail falls off quite quickly and does not seem to extend to zero at these couplings. We find that the distribution of the smallest Dirac operator eigenvalues provides an efficient observable for an accurate determination of the location of the chiral phase transition, as first suggested by Jackson and Verbaarschot.
We investigate a chiral property of the domain-wall fermion (DWF) system using the four-dimensional hermitian Wilson-Dirac operator $H_W$. A formula expressing the Ward-Takahashi identity quark mass $m_{5q}$ with eigenvalues of this operator is derived, which well explains the $N_5$ dependence of $m_{5q}$ observed in previous numerical simulations. We further discuss the chiral property of DWF in the large volume in terms of the spectra of $H_W$.
In this paper, we present a method for the computation of the low-lying real eigenvalues of the Wilson-Dirac operator based on the Arnoldi algorithm. These eigenvalues contain information about several observables. We used them to calculate the sign of the fermion determinant in one-flavor QCD and the sign of the Pfaffian in N=1 super Yang-Mills theory. The method is based on polynomial transformations of the Wilson-Dirac operator, leading to considerable improvements of the computation of eigenvalues. We introduce an iterative procedure for the construction of the polynomials and demonstrate the improvement in the efficiency of the computation. In general, the method can be applied to operators with a symmetric and bounded eigenspectrum.
Chiral properties of QCD formulated with the domain-wall fermion (DWQCD) are studied using the anomalous quark mass m_{5q} and the spectrum of the 4-dimensional Wilson-Dirac operator. Numerical simulations are made with the standard plaquette gauge action and a renormalization-group improved gauge action. Results are reported on the density of zero eigenvalue obtained with the accumulation method, and a comparison is made with the results for m_{5q}.
A polynomial transformation for non-Hermitian matrices is presented, which provides access to wedge-shaped spectral windows. For Wilson-Dirac type matrices this procedure not only allows the determination of the physically interesting low-lying eigenmodes but also provides a substantial acceleration of the eigenmode algorithm employed.