Color screening in (2+1)-flavor QCD

TL;DR

This study investigates how color screening occurs in high-temperature (2+1)-flavor QCD by analyzing static quark-antiquark correlations through lattice calculations across a wide temperature range, comparing results with theoretical models.

Contribution

It provides detailed lattice QCD results on color screening at high temperatures and compares them with weak-coupling and zero-temperature calculations to identify the onset and nature of screening.

Findings

Color screening begins at rT ≈ 0.3.

Weak-coupling models describe screening well for 0.3 ≲ rT ≲ 0.6.

Lattice results agree with effective field theory predictions in the specified range.

Abstract

We study correlation functions of spatially separated static quark-antiquark pairs in (2+1)-flavor QCD in order to investigate onset and nature of color screening at high temperatures. We perform lattice calculations in a wide temperature range, $140 \le T \le 5814\,{\rm MeV}$, using the highly improved staggered quark action and several lattice spacings to control discretization effects. By comparing at high temperatures our lattice results to weak-coupling calculations as well as to the zero temperature result for the energy of a static quark-antiquark pair, we observe that color screening sets in at $rT \approx 0.3$. Furthermore, we also observe that in the range $0.3 \lesssim r T \lesssim 0.6$ weak-coupling calculations in the framework of suitable effective field theories provide an adequate picture of color screening.