We report on a study of hadron thermodynamics with two flavors of Wilson quarks on ${12}^3$×6 lattices. We have studied the crossover between the high- and low-temperature regimes for three values of the hopping parameter, κ=0.16, 0.17, and 0.18. At each of these values of κ we have carried out spectrum calculations on ${12}^3$×24 lattices for two values of the gauge coupling in the vicinity of the crossover in order to set an energy scale for our thermodynamics calculations and to determine the critical value of the gauge coupling for which the pion and quark masses vanish. For κ=0.17 and 0.18 we find coexistence between the high- and low-temperature regimes over 1000 simulation time units indicating either that the equilibration time is extremely long or that there is a possibility of a first-order phase transition. The pion mass is large at the crossover values of the gauge coupling, but the crossover curve has moved closer to the critical curve along which the pion and quark masses vanish, than it was on lattices with four time slices (${\mathit{N}}_{\mathit{t}}$=4). In addition, values of the dimensionless quantity ${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{c}}$/${\mathit{m}}_{\mathrm{\rho }}$ are in closer agreement with those for staggered quarks than was the case at ${\mathit{N}}_{\mathit{t}}$=4.

• Received 27 July 1992

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.46.4741