John Wheater

Abstract:

We study the high-temperature properties of the Z(3) interface which forms between the various ordered phases of pure SU(3) gauge theory above a critical temperature. On a (2+1)-D Euclidean lattice, we perform an accurate measurement of the interface tension, which shows good agreement with the prediction of perturbation theory. We also examine the behaviour of the Debye electric screening mass, and compare this with theoretical predictions.

Abstract:

A study is made of some properties of this interface in the SU(3) pure gauge theory in 2+1 dimensions. At high temperatures, the interface tension is measured and shows agreement with the perturbative prediction. Near the critical temperature, the behaviour of the interface is examined, and its fluctuations compared to a scalar field theory model.

Abstract:

We report on a high statistics numerical study of the crystalline random surface model with extrinsic curvature on lattices of up to $64^2$ points. The critical exponents at the crumpling transition are determined by a number of methods all of which are shown to agree within estimated errors. The correlation length exponent is found to be $\nu=0.71(5)$ from the tangent-tangent correlation function whereas we find $\nu=0.73(6)$ by assuming finite size scaling of the specific heat peak and hyperscaling. These results imply a specific heat exponent $\alpha=0.58(10)$; this is a good fit to the specific heat on a $64^2$ lattice with a $\chi^2$ per degree of freedom of 1.7 although the best direct fit to the specific heat data yields a much lower value of $\alpha$. Our measurements of the normal-normal correlation functions suggest that the model in the crumpled phase is described by an effective field theory which deviates from a free field theory only by super-renormalizable interactions.