Quark spectral function and deconfinement at nonzero temperature

Abstract

The maximum entropy method is used to compute the quark spectral function at nonzero temperature. We solve the gap equation of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) self-consistently, employing a rainbow kernel which phenomenologically models results from Dyson-Schwinger equations and lattice QCD. We use the criterion of positivity restoration of the spectral function as a signal for deconfinement. Our calculation indicates that the critical temperature of deconfinement ${T}_{d}$ is slightly smaller than the one of chiral symmetry restoration ${T}_{c}$: ${T}_{d}\ensuremath{\sim}94%{T}_{c}$ in the chiral limit and ${T}_{d}\ensuremath{\sim}96%{T}_{c}$ with physical light quark masses. Since these deviations are within the systematic error of our approach, it is reasonable to conclude that chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement coincide at zero chemical potential.