Finite-temperature phase transition of SU(3) gauge theory onNt=4 and 6lattices

The deconfining finite-temperature transition of SU(3) gauge theory is studied on the dedicated parallel computer QCDPAX. Monte Carlo simulations are performed on ${12}^2$×24×4, ${24}^2$×36×4, ${20}^3$×6, ${24}^3$×6, and ${36}^2$×48×6 lattices with 376 000 to 1 112 000 iterations. The finite size scaling behavior of the first-order transition is confirmed both on the $N_t=4\mathrm{}$ and $N_t=6\mathrm{}$ lattices and clear two-phase structures are observed on spatially large lattices (${24}^2$×36×4 and ${36}^2$×48×6). The latent heat at the deconfining transition is estimated both by a direct measurement of the gap on the spatially large lattices and by applying a finite-size scaling law. The results obtained by these two independent methods are remarkably consistent with each other on both the $N_t=4\mathrm{}$ lattices. The latent heat for $N_t=6\mathrm{}$ is much smaller than that for $N_t=4\mathrm{}$ and is about ⅓ of the Stefan-Boltzmann value $\frac{{8\pi }^2}{15}$. The details of the data and the error analysis are presented.