The non-perturbative equation of state for gluon matter

TL;DR

This paper derives a non-perturbative equation of state for pure gluon matter using an effective potential approach, revealing a temperature-driven phase transition consistent with lattice QCD results.

Contribution

It generalizes the effective potential method to non-zero temperatures for pure Yang-Mills fields, providing a first-principles, non-perturbative equation of state without relying on coupling constants.

Findings

Pressure changes regime at T* = 266.5 MeV

Thermodynamical quantities show drastic changes near T*

Results agree qualitatively and quantitatively with lattice QCD

Abstract

In order to derive equation of state for the pure SU(3) Yang-Mills fields from first principles, it is proposed to generalize the effective potential approach for composite operators to non-zero temperatures. It is essentially non-perturbative by construction, since it assumes the summation of an infinite number of the corresponding contributions. There is no dependence on the coupling constant, only a dependence on the mass gap, which is responsible for the large-scale structure of the QCD ground state. The equation of state generalizes the Bag constant at non-zero temperatures, while its nontrivial Yang-Mills part has been approximated by the generalization of the free gluon propagator to non-zero temperatures, as a first necessary step. Even in this case we were able to show explicitly that the pressure may almost continuously change its regime at $T^* = 266.5 MeV$.All the other thermodynamical quantities such as energy density, entropy, etc. are to be understood to have drastic changes in their regimes in the close vicinity of $T^*$. All this is in qualitative and quantitative agreement with thermal lattice QCD results for the pure Yang-Mills fields. We have firmly established the behavior of all the thermodynamical quantities in the region of low temperatures, where thermal lattice QCD calculations suffer from big uncertainties.