Bulk first-order phase transition in three-flavor lattice QCD with $O(a)$-improved Wilson fermion action at zero temperature

Three-flavor QCD simulation with the $O(a)$-improved Wilson fermion action is made employing an exact fermion algorithm developed for odd number of quark flavors. For the plaquette gauge action, an unexpected first-order phase transition is found in the strong coupling regime ($\beta\lesssim$ 5.0) at relatively heavy quark masses ($m_{\mathrm{PS}}/m_{\mathrm{V}}\sim$ 0.74--0.87). Strong metastability persists on a large lattice of size $12^3\times 32$, which indicates that the transition has a bulk nature. The phase gap becomes smaller toward weaker couplings and vanishes at $\beta\simeq 5.0$, which corresponds to a lattice spacing $a\simeq$ 0.1 fm. The phase transition is not found if the improved gauge actions are employed. Our results imply that realistic simulations of QCD with three flavors of dynamical Wilson-type fermions at lattice spacings in the range $a=$ 0.1--0.2 fm require use of improved gauge actions. Possible origins of the phase transition is discussed.