Critical behavior of a chiral condensate with a meron cluster algorithm

A new meron cluster algorithm is constructed to study the finite temperature critical behavior of the chiral condensate in a (3 + 1)-dimensional model of interacting staggered fermions. Using finite size scaling analysis the infinite volume condensate is shown to be consistent with the behavior of the form (T-c - T)(0.314(7)) for temperatures less than the critical temperature and m(1/4.87(10)) at the critical temperature confirming that the critical behavior belongs to the 3-d Ising universality class within one to two sigma deviation. The new method, along with improvements in the implementation of the algorithm, allows the determination of the critical temperature T-c more accurately than was possible in a previous study. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.