# Study of the order of the phase transition in pure U(1) gauge theory with Villain action

## 1 INTRODUCTION

U(1) lattice gauge theory with Villain action

$$\mathrm{exp}(S_\mathrm{V})=\underset{\mathrm{P}}{}\underset{\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{P}}{}\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{\beta }{2}(\theta _\mathrm{P}2\pi m_\mathrm{P})^2\right\}$$

is, on the infinite lattice, equivalent  to the $``$ gauge theory

$$S_\mathrm{Z}=\kappa \underset{\mathrm{P}}{}n_\mathrm{P}^2\left(\kappa =\frac{1}{2\beta }\right),$$
(1)   
a gauge theory with an integer valued gauge field on the links. In particular the order of the phase transition and universal quantities are the same. We choose the $``$ gauge theory for computational advantages and use a toroidal lattice with periodic boundary conditions. We expect<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1This is suggeted by a Fourier transform of $`S_\mathrm{V}`$. the Villain action to have properties similar to those of the extended action

$$S_\mathrm{E}=\underset{P}{}(\beta \mathrm{cos}(\theta _P)+\gamma \mathrm{cos}(2\theta _P))$$
(2)   
with $`\gamma 0.22`$.   

The order of the phase transition in this parameter region is controversial. Scaling of gauge-balls  suggests second order. Finite size scaling of the specific heat is consistent with first order  (torus and surface of 5D hypercube) as well as with second order  (homogenous sphere). The volume dependence of the latent heat on finite lattices is consistent with first order as well as with second order.

For a more detailed discussion of our results we refer to .

## 2 SIMULATION

A Metropolis algorithm is used for the update. The statistics is summarized in Tab. 1. We perform Ferrenberg Swendsen multihistogram reweighting  to the maximum of the specific heat. Jackknife errors are calculated for all quantities. The flip autocorrelation time $`\tau _{\mathrm{flip}}`$, which corresponds to the mean life time of a pure phase configuration, is estimated from the time evolution of the energy density. $`\tau _{\mathrm{flip}}`$ is a more adequate measure for the number of statistically independent measurements than $`\tau _{\mathrm{int}}`$. $`\tau _{\mathrm{flip}}`$ is in our case about a factor 3-5 greater than $`\tau _{\mathrm{int}}`$.

## 3 SPECIFIC HEAT

Finite size scaling theory for first order transitions (see e.g. ) predicts the maximum of the specific heat to diverge $`L^D`$ which implies $`\nu =1/4`$. The effective exponent $`\nu _{\mathrm{eff}}(L)`$, which is calculated from the specific heat at two neighbouring $`L`$, is shown in Fig. 1. We compare with $`\nu _{\mathrm{eff}}`$ obtained in  at $`\gamma =0.2`$ and find agreement almost within error bars.   
Clearly there is a tendency for $`\nu _{\mathrm{eff}}(L)`$ to decrease over the $`L`$ range considered, but a stabilization on a certain value is not observed.

## 4 PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION

The probability distribution $`p_L(e)`$, where $`e`$ is the action divided by the number of plaquettes, has for $`L10`$ two peaks with a minimum in between them. It is not well described by the sum of two Gaussians. The minimum becomes more pronounced with increasing volume, but the distance between the peaks decreases.

The histograms are reweighted to the maximum of the specific heat. For a first order transition this is asymptotically equivalent to equal weight of the coexisting phases. Then the positions in $`e`$ of the maxima, the minimum and where the histogram is half of its respective maximum value on the outer flanks of the distribution function are calculated.

A first order transition would obviously require the width of $`p_L(e)`$ to extrapolate to a non-zero value. It is consistent with the data that the histogram width shrinks to zero approximately like $`1/L`$ for $`L\mathrm{}`$ (Fig. 2). This behaviour would imply a second order phase transition in spite of the observation of hysteresis and a double peaked histogram on finite lattices.

The position especially of the lower maximum (confinement phase) varies irregularly. Presumably the discrete nature of the considered action contributes to this effect.

The $`L`$ extrapolation of the upper energy branch’s data (Coulomb phase) is less sensitive to the extrapolation ansatz than the lower energy branch’s data. This is related to the fact that the energy fluctuations within the confinement branch are much larger than in the Coulomb phase. In fact they have the magnitude of the possible gap itself.

Following , we use

$$F(L)=\frac{1}{2L^{d1}}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{P_L^{\mathrm{max},1}P_L^{\mathrm{max},2}}{(P_L^{\mathrm{min}})^2}\right)$$
(3)   
as a finite volume estimator for the interface tension. $`F(L)`$ slowly decreases with the lattice size. Again a stabilization to a constant value is not observed. It may shrink to zero for $`L\mathrm{}`$. A power law fit $`F(L)L^z`$ results in $`z=0.3(1)`$.

Also the ratio of the peak heights is not stable in the considered $`L`$ range.

## 5 CONCLUSIONS

We have done a high statistics simulation of the $``$ gauge theory using large lattices. Nevertheless, it is not possible to give definite answers to the question of the order of the phase transition from our simulations. We find that the typical indications of a first order transition — hysteresis and histograms with double peaks — persist up to $`L=28`$. On the other hand, the width of the energy density histogram might shrink to zero, which would imply second order. The $`L`$ dependent exponent $`\nu _{\mathrm{eff}}(L)`$ decreases steadily but does not stabilize in the considered $`L`$ range. The limit $`lim_L\mathrm{}\nu _{\mathrm{eff}}(L)`$ requires larger lattices. The finite volume estimator for the interface tension slowly decreases with $`L`$ and might vanish in the thermodynamic limit. In addition, the flattening of the probability distribution in the metastable phase region typical for first order phase transitions has not been observed in our simulations. Therefore a stabilization of the finite volume interface tension estimator is not expected. The ratio of the peak heights at the maximum of $`C_V`$ does not stabilize in the considered $`L`$ range.

The simulations have been done on toroidal lattices as opposed to spherical lattices with homogenously distributed curvature , where full consistency with second order finite size scaling behaviour has been seen. Also, we want to point out that a mass determination on toroidal lattices away from the transition point — where finite size effects are under control —, as has been done in , is feasible in spite of the complications immediately at the transition point. Those results favor second order. Our data for the effective $`\nu _{\mathrm{eff}}(L)`$ indicate that if the phase transition should actually turn out to be first order, the next larger lattice sizes may exhibit a stabilization of $`\nu _{\mathrm{eff}}(L)`$ at the value 1/4. Such lattices could, in principle, be simulated on massively parallel architectures.

The transition might well be of first order, but even if that was a given fact larger lattices would be necessary for a better understanding of the peculiar finite size effects. In that case the similarity to second order would indicate a critical point not far away in the coupling space. In any case it will be interesting to pursue the investigation of pure U(1) gauge theory on the lattice further.

## 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is supported in part by funds provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.) under cooperative research agreement DE-FC02-94ER40818. The computations have been performed on the Cray-T90 of HLRZ Juelich. We thank I. Campos, J. Jersák and U.-J. Wiese for discussions.