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Roberge-Weiss transition as a probe for conformality in many-flavor QCD

Massimo D’Elia*, Marco Nacci†, and Kevin Zambello‡

  • *Contact author: massimo.delia@unipi.it
  • †Contact author: m.nacci3@studenti.unipi.it
  • ‡Contact author: kevin.zambello@pi.infn.it
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 034502 – Published 10 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/d8jw-ydq7

Abstract

We consider the problem of identifying the onset of the conformal window for QCD with Nf massless flavors in the fundamental representation and propose a new effective method to determine it from lattice simulations. This method is based on the investigation of the so-called Roberge-Weiss transition temperature TRW, which is encountered at specific values of the imaginary baryon chemical potential, and can also be interpreted as the inverse of the critical spatial size at which charge conjugation is spontaneously broken in a finite box. Since TRW corresponds to a genuine phase transition for any value of the quark masses, it is a well-defined quantity; we argue that the critical Nf at which TRW vanishes in the chiral limit coincides with the onset of the conformal window. We implement our proposal by investigating QCD with Nf=8 flavors, discretized via stout improved staggered fermions and the tree-level improved Symanzik pure gauge action, at Euclidean temporal extents Nt=8, 10, 12, 16, 24. In this case, our numerical results are consistent with a TRW that vanishes in the chiral limit, which would indicate that Nf=8 is already in the conformal window.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 034502– Published 10 August, 2026
  • Received 4 May 2026
  • Accepted 8 July 2026
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