Real-time warm pions from the lattice using an effective theory

Abstract

Lattice measurements provide adequate information to fix the parameters of long-distance effective field theories in Euclidean time. Using such a theory, we examine the analytic continuation of long-distance correlation functions of composite operators at finite temperature from Euclidean to Minkowski space–time. We show through an explicit computation that the analytic continuation of the pion correlation function is possible and gives rise to nontrivial effects. Among them is the possibility, supported by lattice computations of Euclidean correlators, that long distance excitations can be understood in terms of (very massive) pions even at temperatures higher than the QCD crossover temperature.