Heavy Quark Free Energies and Screening in SU(2) Gauge Theory

TL;DR

This paper studies the behavior of heavy quark free energies and screening effects in SU(2) gauge theory across different temperatures, revealing similarities to SU(3) and examining renormalization methods for the Polyakov loop.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the temperature dependence of string tension and screening masses in SU(2), and tests a new renormalization approach for the Polyakov loop.

Findings

Qualitative similarity to SU(3) results away from critical temperature

Temperature dependence of string tension and screening masses analyzed

Validation of a new Polyakov loop renormalization method

Abstract

We investigate the singlet, triplet and colour average heavy quark free energies in SU(2) pure gauge theory at various temperatures T. We focus on the long distance behaviour of the free energies, studying in particular the temperature dependence of the string tension and the screening masses. The results are qualitatively similar to the SU(3) scenario, except near the critical temperature Tc of the deconfining transition. Finally we test a recently proposed method to renormalize the Polyakov loop.