Unquenched QCD with light quarks

Abstract

We present recent results in unquenched lattice QCD with two degenerate light sea quarks using the truncated determinant approximation (TDA). In the TDA the infrared modes contributing to the quark determinant are computed exactly up to some cutoff in quark off-shellness (typically $2{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{\mathrm{QCD}}).$ This approach allows simulations to be performed at much lighter quark masses than possible with conventional hybrid Monte Carlo techniques. Results for the static energy and topological charge distributions are presented using a large ensemble generated on very coarse ${(6}^{4})$ but physically large lattices. Preliminary results are also reported for the static energy and meson spectrum on ${10}^{3}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}20$ lattices (lattice scale ${a}^{\ensuremath{-}1}=1.15\mathrm{GeV})$ at quark masses corresponding to pions of mass $<~200\mathrm{MeV}.$ Using multiboson simulation to compute the ultraviolet part of the quark determinant the TDA approach becomes an exact algorithm with essentially no increase in computational effort. Some preliminary results using this fully unquenched algorithm are presented.