出版社：SISSA, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati
摘要：We study the quark mass dependence of the QCD phase transition by an effective potential defined through the distribution function of observables. As a test of the method, we study the first order deconfinement phase transition in the heavy quark mass limit and its fate at lighter quark masses. We confirm that the distribution function for the plaquette has two peaks indicating that the phase transition is of first order in the heavy quark limit. We then study the quark mass dependence of the distribution function by a reweighting method combined with the hopping parameter expansion. We find that the first order transition turns into a crossover as the quark mass decreases. We determine the critical point for the cases of Nf = 1, 2, 3 and 2+1. We find that the probability distribution function provides us with a powerful tool to study the order of transitions.
