Critical behavior in pure compact U(1) gauge theory on toroidal lattices

Abstract

Abstract We report results of a high-statistics Monte Carlo simulation of the phase transition in compact U(1) lattice gauge theory with Wilson action on a hypercubic lattice with periodic boundary conditions. By a careful analysis of the histograms of the plaquette energy distribution, we can measure gaps with sufficient accuracy on lattice sizes ranging from 4 4 to 16 4 . We find that all data points can be successfully reproduced by the two-parameter ansatz Δe(L) = Δe(∞) + a L with a non-zero latent heat in the infinite volume limit. On the other hand we confirm that the pseudo-critical temperatures scale with a critical exponent ν = 0.326(8) different from the first-order prediction ν = 0.25. We also check the scaling of the maximum of the specific heat with a critical exponent α consistent with the hyperscaling relation.