It is expected that the number of flavors in a gauge theory plays an important role in model building for physics beyond the standard model. We study the phase structure of the 12 flavor case through lattice simulations using a Rational Hybrid Monte Carlo (RHMC) algorithm for different masses, betas, and volumes, to investigate the question of conformality for this number of flavors. In particular, we analyze the Fisher's zeroes, in the vicinity of the endpoint of a line of first order phase transitions. This is motivated by previous studies that show how the complex renormalization group (RG) flows can be understood by looking at the zeros. The pinching of the imaginary part of these zeros with respect to increasing volume provides information about a possible unconventional continuum limit.
We also study the mass spectrum of a multiflavor linear sigma model with a splitting of fermion masses. The single mass linear sigma model successfully described a light sigma in accordance to recent lattice results. The extension to two masses predicts an unusual ordering of scalar masses, providing incentive for further lattice simulations with split quark mass.