Pure gauge glueballs at finite temperature

TL;DR

This study investigates pure gauge glueballs at finite temperature using lattice simulations, revealing that their masses remain stable below the critical temperature and decrease above it, with thermal widths increasing significantly above $T_c$.

Contribution

The paper provides the first detailed analysis of glueball pole masses and widths across a wide temperature range, highlighting their behavior near and above the critical temperature.

Findings

Glueball pole masses are nearly constant below $T_c$ and decrease above it.

Thermal widths are small below $T_c$ and grow rapidly above $T_c$.

Masses and widths are analyzed using Breit-Wigner ansatz.

Abstract

Pure gauge glueballs at finite temperature are investigated in a large temperature range from $0.3T_c$ to $1.9T_c$ on anisotropic lattices. Optimized glueball operators are used to obtain better signals. It is found in all 20 symmetry channels that the pole masses $M_G$ of glueballs remain almost constants when the temperature approaches the critical temperature $T_c$ from below, and start to reduce gradually with the temperature going above $T_c$. The glueball correlators in $0^{++}$, $0^{-+}$, and $2^{++}$ channels, are also analyzed based on the Breit-Wigner ansatz by assuming a thermal width $\Gamma$ to the pole mass $\omega_0$. While $\omega_0$'s are insensitive to $T$ in the whole temperature range, $\Gamma$'s exhibit distinct behavior below and above $T_c$: They are only few percents of $\omega_0$ when $T<T_c$, but grow abruptly when $T>T_c$ and reach values of roughly $\Gamma\sim \omega_0/2$ at $T\approx 1.9T_c$.