Finite-size effects and scaling for the thermal QCD deconfinementphase transition within the exact color-singlet partition function

Abstract

We study the finite-size effects for the thermal QCD Deconfinement Phase Transition (DPT), and use a numerical finite size scaling analysis to extract the scaling exponents characterizing its scaling behavior when approaching the thermodynamic limit. For this, we use a simple model of coexistence of hadronic gas and color-singlet Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) phases in a finite volume. The Color-Singlet Partition Function (CSPF) of the QGP cannot be exactly calculated and is usually derived within the saddle point approximation. When we try to do calculations with such an approximate CSPF, a problem arises in the limit of small temperatures and/or volumes (VT3<<1), requiring then additional approximations if we want to carry out calculations. We propose in this work a new method for an accurate calculation of any quantity of the finite system, without explicitly calculating the CSPF itself and without any approximation. By probing the behavior of some useful thermodynamic response functions on the hole range of temperature, it turns out that in a finite size system, all singularities in the thermodynamic limit are smeared out and the transition point is shifted away. A numerical finite size scaling analysis of the obtained data allows us to determine the scaling exponents of the QCD DPT. Our results expressing the equality between their values and the space dimensionality is a consequence of the singularity characterizing a first order phase transition and agree very well with the predictions of other FSS theoretical approaches and with the results of both lattice QCD and Monte Carlo models calculations.