Numerical Studies of the 4 Flavor QCD Phase Transition with a 16 Gigaflop Parallel Processor

A study of the finite-temperature phase transition of lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) with four flavors of equal mass Kogut-Susskind quarks is presented. Various masses at two lattice spacings are simulated for physical volumes larger than those previously attempted. Small bare quark masses displaying first order chiral transitions are located at both lattice spacings, and the range of masses in the chiral regime is found to be significantly smaller for the finer lattice. This result was not anticipated by previous simulations. Examining the scaling of the physical phase transition temperature, however, does not provide sufficient evidence that our simulations are in the continuum limit. Although nature does not consist of four flavors of equal mass quarks, the location of the chiral regime and the determination of the continuum limit indicate the feasibility of simulating real world QCD.