Yang-Mills theory at non-vanishing temperature

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of ghost and gluon propagators in Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature using a functional renormalisation group approach, revealing thermal effects on confinement and screening phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a method to compute thermal propagators in Yang-Mills theory within a functional renormalisation group framework, focusing on purely thermal fluctuations.

Findings

Electric propagator is thermally suppressed above Tc due to Debye screening.

Magnetic gluon propagator exhibits thermal scaling and approaches three-dimensional behavior.

Below Tc, the electric propagator shows an enhancement consistent with lattice results.

Abstract

We compute ghost and gluon propagators of Yang-Mills theory in the Landau gauge at non-vanishing temperature within a functional renormalisation group setting. We construct purely thermal flows, that project onto thermal fluctuations only. For temperatures and momenta above the confinement-deconfinement temperature Tc the electric propagator shows a thermal suppression due to Debye screening. The magnetic gluon propagator shows a thermal scaling and tends towards the three-dimensional one. In this region both propagators match the lattice propagators. The thermal scaling is also reflected in the infrared suppression of the ghost-gluon vertex. For temperatures below Tc the electric propagator shows an enhancement which is in qualitative agreement with the lattice behaviour.