Spatial dependence of meson correlation functions at high temperature

Abstract

The spatial dependence of meson correlation functions at high temperature is studied in perturbative QCD, keeping only the lowest order term. We obtain analytic results for the static correlation function in this approximation. Problems connected with the regularization of the divergent expressions are discussed in detail. The meson screening mass is determined from the form of the correlation function at large distances. We obtain\(m_{src} = 2\sqrt {\pi ^2 T^2 + M^2 } \), which agrees with the results of Eletskii and Ioffe, for massless quarks (M=0). Finally, the correlation function in the temporal direction is briefly discussed. For massless quarks, we find the corresponding screening massmscr=2πT.