An effective field theory for thermal QCD with 2+1 flavours

TL;DR

This paper develops a long-distance effective field theory for thermal QCD with 2+1 flavors near the crossover temperature, using lattice data to determine low energy constants and predicting various static and dynamic properties.

Contribution

It introduces a new EFT for thermal QCD with 2+1 flavors, calibrated with lattice data, and provides predictions for phase diagram, pressure, and kinetic mass.

Findings

EFT accurately predicts static pion properties for Nf=2.

EFT provides excellent phase diagram predictions for Nf=2+1.

Predictions for pressure and kinetic mass are consistent with lattice results.

Abstract

We write a long-distance effective field theory (EFT) for QCD at finite temperature just below the crossover temperature $T_c$. The low energy constants (LECs) of this EFT are obtained from lattice measurements of the screening mass of pions at two temperatures for $N_f=2+1$ using lattice results obtained at physical values of pion and Kaon masses, and $N_f=2$ where the lattice simulations were performed with a heavier pion mass. The EFT gives good predictions for other static pion properties for $N_f=2$, where lattice results are available. We show the corresponding predictions for $N_f=2+1$, where they are not yet measured. We demonstrate that EFT gives excellent predictions for the phase diagram in $N_f=2+1$. The predictions for the pressure are investigated, and predictions are also given for a Wick-rotated real-time quantity called the kinetic mass.