Quark Confinement from Color Confinement

TL;DR

This paper connects quark confinement, measured by the Polyakov loop, to color confinement mechanisms, using functional RG methods to predict the nature of the deconfinement transition and estimate the critical temperature in quenched QCD.

Contribution

It introduces a criterion linking ghost and gluon propagator IR behavior to quark confinement and computes the order-parameter potential using Landau-gauge correlation functions.

Findings

Deconfinement transition is first order for SU(3) and second order for SU(2).

Estimated critical temperature T_c=284MeV for SU(3).

Approach aligns with general expectations of confinement scenarios.

Abstract

We relate quark confinement, as measured by the Polyakov-loop order parameter, to color confinement, as described by the Kugo-Ojima/Gribov-Zwanziger scenario. We identify a simple criterion for quark confinement based on the IR behaviour of ghost and gluon propagators, and compute the order-parameter potential from the knowledge of Landau-gauge correlation functions with the aid of the functional RG. Our approach predicts the deconfinement transition in quenched QCD to be of first order for SU(3) and second order for SU(2) -- in agreement with general expectations. As an estimate for the critical temperature, we obtain T_c=284MeV for SU(3).