Electric and Magnetic Screening Masses at Finite Temperature from Generalized Polyakov-Line Correlations in Two-flavor Lattice QCD

TL;DR

This study investigates electric and magnetic screening masses in the quark-gluon plasma using lattice QCD with two flavors, revealing gauge-invariant extraction methods and agreement with theoretical models.

Contribution

It introduces a gauge-invariant method to extract electric and magnetic screening masses from generalized Polyakov-line correlations in lattice QCD.

Findings

Magnetic screening dominates the long-distance behavior of Polyakov-line correlations.

The ratio of screening masses aligns with predictions from effective field theories.

Screening masses are successfully extracted using Euclidean-time reflection and charge conjugation symmetries.

Abstract

Screenings of the quark-gluon plasma in electric and magnetic sectors are studied on the basis of generalized Polyakov-line correlation functions in lattice QCD simulations with two flavors of improved Wilson quarks. Using the Euclidean-time reflection ($\R$) and the charge conjugation ($\Ca$), electric and magnetic screening masses are extracted in a gauge invariant manner. Long distance behavior of the standard Polyakov-line correlation in the quark-gluon plasma is found to be dictated by the magnetic screening. Also, ratio of the two screening masses agrees with that obtained from the dimensionally-reduced effective field theory and the ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory.