The calculation of critical amplitudes in SU(2) lattice gauge theory

We calculate the critical amplitudes of the Polyakov loop and its susceptibility at the deconfinement transition of (3 + 1)-dimensional SU(2) gauge theory. To this end we study the corrections due to irrelevant exponents in the scaling functions. As a guiding line for determining the critical amplitudes we use envelope equations which we derive from the finite site scaling formulae of the observables. We have produced new high precision data on N-sigma(3) x 4 lattices for N-sigma = 12, 18, 26 and 36, With these data we find different corrections to the asymptotic scaling behaviour above and below the transition. Our result for the universal ratio of the susceptibility amplitudes is C+/C- = 4.72(11) and thus in excellent agreement with a recent measurement for the 3d Ising model. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.