Light-Quark Mesons and Four-Quark Condensates at Finite Temperature

We propose an analog of the familiar gap equation for the case of four-quark condensates at finite temperature. The condensates of interest correspond to scalar, vector, psudoscalar, axial vector, and tensor Dirac structures. Working with correlators at zero chemical potential without factorization, we arrive at coupled equations for these four-quark condensates and the masses of certain light-quark mesons. We study the temperature dependence of the four-quark condensates and masses; in one of our models, factorization of the four-quark condensates is shown to be increasingly violated as the temperature is increased toward $T_c$. The 2$^{++}$ tensor mesons a$_2$(1320)-f$_2$(1270) are identified as especially sensitive probes of the four-quark condensates.