Hadronic Screening in Improved Taste

TL;DR

This study investigates meson and nucleon screening masses in finite temperature two-flavor QCD, exploring smearing effects, chiral symmetry, and comparing results with weak-coupling predictions to understand hadronic behavior near the crossover temperature.

Contribution

It introduces optimized smearing techniques for improved hadronic operators and analyzes their impact on screening masses and chiral symmetry restoration in finite temperature QCD.

Findings

Screening masses above T_c align with weak-coupling predictions.

Rapid spectral gap opening of the Dirac operator immediately above T_c.

Smearing enhances the understanding of chiral symmetry interplay at finite temperature.

Abstract

We present our results on meson and nucleon screening masses in finite temperature two flavour QCD using smeared staggered valence quarks and staggered thin-link sea quarks with different lattice spacings and quark masses. We investigate optimization of smearing by observing its effects on the infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) components of gluon and quark fields. The application of smearing to screening at finite temperature also provides a transparent window into the mechanism of the interplay of smearing and chiral symmetry. The improved hadronic operators show that above the finite temperature cross over, T_c, screening masses are consistent with weak-coupling predictions. There is also evidence for a rapid opening up of a spectral gap of the Dirac operator immediately above T_c.