Infrared features of unquenched finite temperature lattice Landau gauge QCD

TL;DR

This study investigates infrared features of ghost and gluon propagators in unquenched finite temperature lattice Landau gauge QCD, revealing temperature-dependent non-perturbative effects and differences due to dynamical quarks.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed comparison of ghost and gluon propagators at finite temperature in unquenched lattice QCD, highlighting non-perturbative effects and the influence of dynamical quarks.

Findings

Color antisymmetric ghost propagator's Binder cumulant decreases above T_c

Gluon propagators show temperature-dependent infrared behavior

Running coupling remains nearly temperature independent

Abstract

The color diagonal and color antisymmetric ghost propagators slightly above $T_c$ of $N_f=2$ MILC $24^3\times 12$ lattices are measured and compared with zero temperature unquenched $N_f=2+1$ MILC$_c$ $20^3\times 64$ and MILC$_f$ $28^3\times 96$ lattices and zero temperature quenched $56^4$ $\beta=6.4$ and 6.45 lattices. The expectation value of the color antisymmetric ghost propagator $\phi^c(q)$ is zero but its Binder cumulant, which is consistent with that of $N_c^2-1$ dimensional Gaussian distribution below $T_c$, decreases above $T_c$. Although the color diagonal ghost propagator is temperature independent, the $l^1$ norm of the color antisymmetric ghost propagator is temperature dependent. The expectation value of the ghost condensate observed at zero temperature unquenched configuration is consistent with 0 in $T>T_c$. We also measure transverse, magnetic and electric gluon propagator and extract gluon screening masses. The running coupling measured from the product of the gluon dressing function and the ghost dressing function are almost temperature independent but the effect of $A^2$ condensate observed at zero temperature is consistent with 0 in $T>T_c$. The transverse gluon dressing function at low temperature has a peak in the infrared but it becomes flatter at high temperature. Its absolute value in the high momentum is larger for high temperature and similar to the magnetic gluon dressing function. The electric gluon propagator at high momentum is temperature independent. These data imply that the magnetic gluon propagator and the color antisymmetric ghost propagator are affected by the presence of dynamical quarks and there are strong non-perturbative effects through the temperature dependent color anti-symmetric ghost propagator.