PHASE-STRUCTURE OF 3-DIMENSIONAL QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS WITH DYNAMICAL FERMIONS

We present the numerical results of the first computer simulation of lattice quantum chromodynamics in three dimensions (QCD3) with dynamical fermions, obtained with the microcanonical fermionic average method. The phase diagram in the (beta, N(f)) plane is analysed by means of a mechanism recently developed for understanding the N(f)-critical phenomenon in the full theory. The approximations involved are related to an expansion of the fermionic effective action as a power series of the number of flavours N(f). Our results in the chiral limit show the existence of a first order phase transition at very large N(f) terminating in a critical point at finite beta, where the specific heat diverges. This suggests a phase structure for QCD3 similar to that of compact QED3.