Critical point phase transition for finite temperature 3-flavor QCD with nonperturbatively O(a) improved Wilson fermions at Nt=10

We study the finite temperature phase structure for three-flavor QCD with a focus on locating the critical point, which separates the crossover and the first order phase transition region in the chiral regime of the Columbia plot. In this study, we employ the Iwasaki gauge action and the nonperturvatively O(a) improved Wilson-Clover fermion action. We discuss the finite size scaling analysis, including the mixing of magnetizationlike and energylike observables. We carry out the continuum extrapolation of the critical point using newly generated data at the Nt=8, 10 and estimate the upper bound of the critical pseudoscalar meson mass mPS,E≲170 MeV and the critical temperature TE=134(3) MeV. Our estimate of the upper bound is derived from the existence of the critical point as an edge of the first order phase transition while that of the staggered-type fermions with smearing is based on its absence