Finite temperature behaviour of glueballs in Lattice Gauge Theories

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for calculating glueball masses at finite temperature in Lattice Gauge Theories, aligning with zero-temperature results and predicting spectrum vanishing at deconfinement, supported by numerical simulations.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to compute finite temperature glueball spectra consistent with known models and thermodynamic expectations, validated through high-precision simulations.

Findings

Glueball spectrum vanishes at deconfinement transition.

Method aligns with Isgur-Paton model predictions.

Numerical results agree with theoretical expectations.

Abstract

We propose a new method to compute glueball masses in finite temperature Lattice Gauge Theories which at low temperature is fully compatible with the known zero temperature results and as the temperature increases leads to a glueball spectrum which vanishes at the deconfinement transition. We show that this definition is consistent with the Isgur-Paton model and with the expected contribution of the glueball spectrum to various thermodynamic quantities at finite temperature. We test our proposal with a set of high precision numerical simulations in the 3d gauge Ising model and find a good agreement with our predictions.