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QCD phase diagram for three-flavor Möbius domain-wall fermions

Yu Zhang1,*, Yasumichi Aoki2, Jishnu Goswami1, Shoji Hashimoto3,4, Issaku Kanamori2, Takashi Kaneko3,4, and Yoshifumi Nakamura2

  • *Contact author: yzhang@physik.uni-bielefeld.de
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 074514 – Published 23 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/dfrh-vxwm

Abstract

We investigate the phase transition of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) with three degenerate quark flavors at zero baryon chemical potential. Using Möbius domain-wall fermions as the lattice fermion formulation, we ensure excellent chiral symmetry preservation. Our simulations are performed at three different temporal lattice extents, Nt=6, 8, 12, with a fixed lattice spacing a=0.1361(20)  fm, corresponding to temperatures of 242(4), 181(3), and 121(2) MeV, respectively. We explore a range of quark masses and spatial volumes with aspect ratios Ns/Nt spanning from 2 to 4. By analyzing the mass and volume dependencies of the plaquette, plaquette susceptibility, chiral condensate, chiral susceptibilities, and Binder cumulant, we identify the pseudocritical transition quark masses from our largest lattice volumes. For Nt=6, this is 184(10) MeV (determined from the plaquette susceptibility), corresponding to mπ≃0.96  GeV. For Nt=8 and 12, the transition points vary slightly depending on whether the total or disconnected chiral susceptibility is used, yielding ranges of 36(1)–39.1(9) MeV and 3.5(3)–3.7(2) MeV, respectively, in the MS¯ scheme at a scale of μ=2  GeV. In terms of the pseudoscalar mass, these correspond to mπ≃427–445  MeV and 133–137 MeV. The negligible volume dependence at Nt=6 and 8, combined with finite-size scaling analysis at Nt=12 revealing volume growth significantly weaker than expected for a first- or second-order phase transition, points to a continuous crossover at these specific quark mass points. Additionally, we study the effects of residual chiral symmetry breaking on the chiral condensate and chiral susceptibilities using two different values of Ls.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 074514– Published 23 October, 2026
  • Received 30 June 2026
  • Accepted 28 September 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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