Phases of QCD from Small to Large N_f: (Some) Lattice Results

We analyze the phases of strong interactions in the space of the flavor number N_f, bare coupling g_L, and temperature T by lattice MonteCarlo simulations for two and three unrooted staggered flavors, corresponding to eight and twelve continuum flavors, respectively. We observe a Coulomb-like phase at intermediate lattice couplings which we interpret as the avatar of a continuum conformal theory for N_f = 12. We comment on the possible occurrence of an UVFP associated with the bulk phase transition between the strong coupling lattice phase and the Coulomb-like phase.