Static $\bar Q Q$ Potentials and the Magnetic Component of QCD Plasma near $T_c$

TL;DR

This paper investigates the static quark-antiquark potential near the deconfinement temperature in QCD, using a magnetic scenario and an analytic model to relate potential features to magnetic and monopole densities, with implications for heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces an analytic ellipsoidal bag model linking the static potential's tension to magnetic condensates and monopole densities near Tc, providing a quantitative understanding of nontrivial potential behavior.

Findings

Large thermal monopole density near Tc consistent with lattice results

Strong splitting between free energy and internal energy near Tc

Quantitative relation between potential tension and magnetic condensates

Abstract

Static quark-anti-quark potential encodes important information on the chromodynamical interaction between color charges, and recent lattice results show its very nontrivial behavior near the deconfinement temperature $T_c$. In this paper we study such potential in the framework of the ``magnetic scenario'' for the near Tc QCD plasma, and particularly focus on the linear part (as quantified by its slope, the tension) in the potential as well as the strong splitting between the free energy and internal energy. By using an analytic ``ellipsoidal bag'' model, we will quantitatively relate the free energy tension to the magnetic condensate density and relate the internal energy tension to the thermal monopole density. By converting the lattice results for static potential into density for thermal monopoles we find the density to be very large around Tc and indicate at quantum coherence, in good agreement with direct lattice calculation of such density. A few important consequences for heavy ion collisions phenomenology will also be discussed.