We investigate chiral symmetry restoration in finite spatial volume and at finite temperature by calculating the dependence of the chiral phase transition temperature $T_c$ on the size of the spatial volume and the current-quark mass for the quark-meson model, using the proper-time renormalization group approach. We find that the critical temperature is weakly dependent on the size of the spatial volume for large current-quark masses, but depends strongly on it for small current-quark masses. In addition, for small volumes we observe a dependence on the choice of quark boundary conditions.

• Received 19 January 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.73.074010