The effect of stout smearing on the phase diagram from multiparameter reweigthing in lattice QCD

Abstract: The phase diagram and the location of the critical endpoint (CEP) of lattice QCD with unimproved staggered fermions on a $N_t=4$ lattice was determined fifteen years ago with the multiparameter reweighting method by studying Fisher zeros. We first reproduce the old result with an exact algorithm (not known at the time) and with statistics larger by an order of magnitude. As an extension of the old analysis we introduce stout smearing in the fermion action in order to reduce the finite lattice spacing effects. First we show that increasing the smearing parameter $\rho$ the crossover at $\mu = 0$ gets weaker, i.e., the leading Fisher zero gets farther away from the real axis. Furthermore as the chemical potential is increased the overlap problem gets severe sooner than in the unimproved case, therefore shrinking the range of applicability of the method. Nevertheless certain qualitative features remain, even after introducing the smearing. Namely, at small chemical potentials the Fisher zeros first get farther away from the real axis and later at around $a\mu _q = 0.1 - 0.15$ they start to get closer, i.e., the crossover first gets weaker and later stronger as a function of $\mu$. However, because of the more severe overlap problem the CEP is out of reach with the smeared action.