2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/197087A strategy is developed to investigate the order of the transition using finite size scaling and its relation to color confinement. An in-depth numerical investigation has been performed with KS fermions on lattices with N_t=4 and N_s=12,16,20,24,32 and quark masses am_q ranging from 0.01335 to 0.35. The specific heat and a number of susceptibilities have been measured and compared with the expectation of an O(4) second order and a first order phase transition. A second order O(4) is excluded, whilst data are consistent with a first order.6 pages, 16 postscript figures, based on parallel talks presented at Lattice2004(non-zero), Fermilab, June 21-26, 2004High Energy Physics - Latticetext