Suppressing monopoles and vortices: a possibly smoother approach to scaling?

Abstract

Suppressing monopoles and vortices by introducing large chemical potentials for them in the Wilson action for the SU(2) lattice gauge theory, we study the nature of the deconfinement phase transition on N³_σ × N_τ lattices for N_τ = 4, 5, 6 and 8 and N_σ = 8-16. Using finite size scaling theory, we obtain ω ≡ γ/ν = 1.93 ± 0.03 for N_τ = 4, in excellent agreement with universality. Corresponding determinations for the N_τ = 5 and 6 lattices are also found to be in very good agreement with this estimate. The critical couplings for N_τ = 4, 5, 6 and 8 lattices exhibit large shifts towards the strong coupling region when compared with the usual Wilson action, and suggest a lot smoother approach to scaling.