Lattice QCD with fermions at strong coupling: A dimer system

Abstract

Lattice QCD with Susskind fermions and gauge group U( N) is shown to be equivalent to a generalized dimer system, when the gauge coupling is infinite. In that formulation chiral symmetry breaking is investigated numerically. Results are confronted with large- N mean field calculations, where the first 1 N correction to the chiral order parameter is computed. It is argued that the PCAC relation between the pion mass and the quark mass can be considered as a mean field scaling relation, and that for this system the mean field approximation is valid in dimension 4.