Critical behavior in N-t=4 staggered fermion thermodynamics - art. no. 054503

Quantum chromodynamics with two zero mass flavors is expected to exhibit a phase transition with O(4) critical behavior. Fixing the universality class is important for phenomenology and far facilitating the extrapolation of s imulation data to physical quark mass values. Other groups have reported re sults from lattice QCD simulations with dynamical staggered quarks at N-t=4 , which suggest a departure from the expected critical behavior. We have pu shed simulations to the largest volumes and smallest quark mass to date. St rong discrepancies in critical exponents and the scaling equation of state persist.