The Gluon Propagator at High Temperature

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of gluon propagators in the deconfined phase of SU(2) gauge theory at high temperatures, focusing on electric and magnetic screening masses and their temperature dependence.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of electric and magnetic screening masses in SU(2) gauge theory at high temperatures using lattice simulations.

Findings

Electric screening mass scales linearly with temperature, m_e(T) ≈ 2.484 T.

Magnetic screening mass decreases with temperature, consistent with m_m(T) ≈ 0.466 g^2(T) T.

No additional temperature dependence observed in m_e(T)/T above twice T_c.

Abstract

We study the gluon propagator in Landau gauge in the deconfined phase of $SU(2)$ gauge theory. From the long-distance behaviour of correlation functions of temporal and spatial components of the gauge fields we extract electric ($m_e$) and magnetic ($m_m$) screening masses. For temperatures larger than twice $T_c$ we find no additional temperature dependence in $m_e(T)/T$, while $m_m(T)/T$ drops with increasing temperature. The decrease is consistent with the expected behaviour, $m_m(T) \sim g^2(T)T$. We find $m_e(T) = 2.484(52)T$ and $m_m(T) = 0.466(15) g^2(T) T$.