The nonperturbative contribution to asymptotic masses

TL;DR

This paper calculates the nonperturbative infrared contribution to the asymptotic thermal mass of charged particles in QCD using lattice methods on its effective theory, EQCD.

Contribution

It provides a nonperturbative calculation of the infrared part of the asymptotic mass in QCD via lattice simulations of EQCD, advancing understanding of medium effects.

Findings

Nonperturbative infrared mass contribution computed for QCD.

Lattice treatment applied to EQCD, an effective low-energy theory.

Results inform the effective thermal mass in high-energy gauge theories.

Abstract

In gauge theories, charged particles obey modified dispersion due to medium interactions (forward scattering), leading at high energies $E \geq T$ to an asymptotic mass-squared $m^2_\infty$. We calculate the infrared part of this mass nonperturbatively for the theory of the strong interactions, QCD, through a lattice treatment of its low-energy effective description, Electrostatic QCD (EQCD). Incorporation of these results into a nonperturbative determination of the effective thermal mass will require a still-incomplete next-to-leading order perturbative matching of this quantity to full QCD.