String tension at finite temperature Lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the string tension in SU(3) Lattice QCD varies with temperature, using Polyakov loops and different computational techniques to analyze the confinement properties at finite temperature.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed comparison of gauge-invariant and gauge-fixed methods for calculating string tension at finite temperature in lattice QCD.

Findings

String tension decreases with increasing temperature.

Gauge-invariant and gauge-fixed methods yield consistent results.

The study enhances understanding of confinement-deconfinement transition.

Abstract

The critical curve of string tension as a function of the temperature is computed in SU(3) Lattice QCD. We present the results for the string tension utilizing a pair of Polyakov loop and antiloop, with two different techniques. We compare the colour averaged loop-antiloop which is gauge invariant but is only adequate to study the string tension, and the colour singlet loop-antiloop using the Landau gauge fixing which also enables to compute the coulomb part of the free energy.