Deconfining phase transition in lattice QCD

We present the first results obtained from the sixteen-processor version of the parallel supercomputer being built at Columbia. The color-deconfining phase transition has been studied fo pure SU(3) gauge theory on lattices with a spatial volume of ${16}^3$ sites and temporal sizes of 10, 12, and 14 sites. The values found for the critical coupling are 6.07, 6.26, and 6.36, respectively. These results are in agreement with the perturbative predictions of the renormalization group, suggesting that lattice QCD calculations with the parameter β at least as large as 6.07 may approximate the continuum limit.