Abstract
We extend the covariant variational approach for Yang-Mills theory in Landau gauge to non-zero temperatures. Numerical solutions for the thermal propagators are presented and compared to high-precision lattice data. To study the deconfinement phase transition, we adapt the formalism to background gauge and compute the effective action of the Polyakov loop for the colour groups SU(2) and SU(3). Using the zero-temperature propagators as input, all parameters are fixed at T = 0 and we find a clear signal for a deconfinement phase transition at finite temperatures, which is second order for SU(2) and first order for SU(3). The critical temperatures obtained are in reasonable agreement with lattice data.
Highlights
The low energy sector of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and, in particular, its phase diagram are among the most actively researched topics in elementary particle physics
The question of confinment must be studied by other means. This is discussed in the second part of this talk, where I report on the variational calculation of the effective action for the Polyakov loop at varying temperatures [8]
We find a clear signal for a phase transition which is second order for the colour group SU(2), and first order for SU(3), and obtain critical temperatures T ∗ that are in good agreement with lattice data
Summary
The low energy sector of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and, in particular, its phase diagram are among the most actively researched topics in elementary particle physics. The most widely used tools are functional renormalization group (FRG) flow equations [1] and Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSE) [2], while extensions of the Faddeev-Popov action through mass terms [3] or the Gribov-Zwanziger term [4] are discussed. The question of confinment must be studied by other means. This is discussed in the second part of this talk, where I report on the variational calculation of the effective action for the Polyakov loop (the order parameter for the deconfinement phase transition) at varying temperatures [8]. We find a clear signal for a phase transition which is second order for the colour group SU(2), and first order for SU(3), and obtain critical temperatures T ∗ that are in good agreement with lattice data. I conclude this talk with a brief summary and an outlook on future developments
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