The WHOT-QCD Collaboration is pushing forward lattice studies of QCD at finite temperatures and densities using improved Wilson quarks. We first present results on QCD at zero and finite densities with two flavors of degenerate quarks (N_F=2 QCD) adopting the conventional fixed-Nt approach. We then report on the status of a study of N_F=2+1 QCD adopting a fixed-scale approach armed with the T-integration method which we have developed.
We study the equation of state in two-flavor QCD at finite temperature and density. Simulations are made with the RG-improved gluon action and the clover-improved Wilson quark action. Along the lines of constant physics for $m_{rm PS}/m_{rm V} = 0.65
$ and 0.80, we compute the derivatives of the quark determinant with respect to the quark chemical potential $mu_q$ up to the fourth order at $mu_q=0$. We adopt several improvement techniques in the evaluation. We study thermodynamic quantities and quark number susceptibilities at finite $mu_q$ using these derivatives. We find enhancement of the quark number susceptibility at finite $mu_q$, in accordance with previous observations using staggered-type quarks. This suggests the existence of a nearby critical point.
The WHOT-QCD Collaboration is pushing forward a series of lattice studies of QCD at finite temperatures and densities using improved Wilson quarks. Because Wilson-type quarks require more computational resources than the more widely adopted staggered
-type quarks, various theoretical and computational techniques have to be developed and applied. In this paper, we introduce the fixed-scale approach armed with the T-integration method, the Gaussian method based on the cumulant expansion, and the histogram method combined with the reweighting technique. Adopting these methods, we have carried out the first study of finite-density QCD with Wilson-type quarks and the first calculation of the equation of state with 2+1 flavors of Wilson-type quarks. We present results of these studies and discuss perspectives towards a clarification of the properties of 2+1 flavor QCD at the physical point, at finite temperatures and densities.
We study the curvature of the chiral transition/crossover line between the low-temperature hadronic phase and the high-temperature quark-gluon-plasma phase at low densities, performing simulations of two-flavor QCD with improved Wilson quarks. After
confirming that the chiral order parameter defined by a Ward-Takahashi identity is consistent with the scaling of the O(4) universality class at zero chemical potential, we extend the scaling analysis to finite chemical potential to determine the curvature of the chiral transition/crossover line at low densities assuming the O(4) universality. To convert the curvature in lattice units to that of the $T_c(mu_B)$ in physical units, we evaluate the lattice scale applying a gradient flow method. We find $kappa=0.0006(1)$ in the chiral limit, which is much smaller than that obtained in (2+1)-flavor QCD with improved staggered quarks.
We study thermodynamic properties of 2+1 flavor QCD with improved Wilson quarks coupled with the RG improved Iwasaki glue, using the fixed scale approach. We present the results for the equation of state, renormalized Polyakov loop, and chiral condensate.
We present results of a first study of equation of state in finite-temperature QCD with two flavors of Wilson-type quarks. Simulations are made on lattices with temporal size $N_t=4$ and 6, using an RG-improved action for the gluon sector and a meanf
ield-improved clover action for the quark sector. The lines of constant physics corresponding to fixed values of the ratio $m_{rm PS}/m_{rm V}$ of the pseudo-scalar to vector meson masses at zero temperature are determined, and the beta functions which describe the renormalization-group flow along these lines are calculated. Using these results, the energy density and the pressure are calculated as functions of temperature along the lines of constant physics in the range $m_{rm PS}/m_{rm V} = 0.65$--0.95. The quark mass dependence in the equation of state is found to be small for $m_{rm PS}/m_{rm V} simlt 0.8$. Comparison of results for $N_t=4$ and $N_t=6$ lattices show significant scaling violation present in the $N_t=4$ results. At high temperatures the results for $N_t=6$ are quite close to the continuum Stefan-Boltzmann limit, suggesting the possibility of a precise continuum extrapolation of thermodynamic quantities from simulations at $N_tsimgt 6$.