QUARK CONFINEMENT IN MULTI-FLAVOR QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS

It is investigated how quark confinement depends on the number of flavors. N(f), in QCD on the lattice with Wilson quarks. We strengthen and extend the conclusion reported at Lattice 91: (1) For N(f) less-than-or-equal-to 6 the finite temperature deconfining transition/crossover line crosses the chiral limit at finite beta. We identify the crossing point for N(f) = 2 and 6 on a T = 4 lattice, where T is the lattice size in the temporal direction. We, find the phase transition at the crossing point is continuous for N(f) = 2, while it is of first order for N(f) = 6. (2) For N(f) greater-than-or-equal-to 7, the T-independent deconfining transition observed at beta = 0 extends up to beta = 4.5 with the critical quark mass m(quark) = O(a-1), where a is the lattice spacing.