Critical behavior of a chiral condensate with a meron cluster algorithm

A new meron cluster algorithm is constructed to study the finite temperatur e critical behavior of the chiral condensate in a (3 + 1)-dimensional model of interacting staggered fermions. Using finite size scaling analysis the infinite volume condensate is shown to be consistent with the behavior of t he form (T-c - T)(0.314(7)) for temperatures less than the critical tempera ture and m(1/4.87(10)) at the critical temperature confirming that the crit ical behavior belongs to the 3-d Ising universality class within one to two sigma deviation. The new method, along with improvements in the implementa tion of the algorithm, allows the determination of the critical temperature T-c more accurately than was possible in a previous study. (C) 2000 Elsevi er Science B.V. All rights reserved.