Large-N reduction in QCD with two adjoint Dirac fermions

Abstract

We use lattice simulations to study the single-site version of SU(N) lattice gauge theory with two flavors of Wilson-Dirac fermions in the adjoint representation, a theory whose large volume correspondent is expected to be conformal or nearly conformal. Working with N as large as 53, we map out the phase diagram in the plane of bare `t Hooft coupling, g^2 N, and of the lattice quark mass, a*m, and look for the region where the Z_N^4 center symmetry of the theory is intact. In this region one expects the large-N equivalence of the single site and infinite volume theories to be valid. As for the N_f=1 case (see Phys. Rev. D80: 065031), we find that the center-symmetric region is large and includes both light fermion masses and masses at the cutoff scale. We study the N-dependence of the width of this region and find strong evidence that it remains of finite width as N goes to infinity. Simulating with couplings as small as g^2 N = 0.005, we find that the width shrinks slowly with decreasing g^2 N, at a rate consistent with analytic arguments. Within the center-symmetric region our results for the phase structure, when extrapolated to infinite N, apply also for the large volume theory, which is minimal walking technicolor with N=infinity. We find a first-order transition as a function of a*m for all values of b, which we argue favors that the theory is confining in the infrared. Finally, we measure the eigenvalue densities of the Wilson-Dirac operator and its hermitian version, and use large Wilson loops to study the utility of reduction for extracting physical observables.