We discuss color screening in 2+1 flavor QCD in terms of free energies of a static quark-antiquark pair. Thermal modifications of long distance correlations in quark-antiquark systems are studied in terms of static meson correlators. We calculate the Polyakov loop correlator, the color-singlet Wilson line correlator in Coulomb gauge and the cyclic Wilson loop on lattices using the HISQ/Tree action and almost physical quark mases with Nτ=4,6,8,10,12. We present results in the continuum limit for temperatures up to T≲650 MeV and discuss the linear divergence of the cyclic Wilson loop.
@article{arxiv.1601.08001,
title = {Polyakov loop correlators and cyclic Wilson loop from lattice QCD},
author = {Alexei Bazavov and Peter Petreczky and Johannes Heinrich Weber},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1601.08001},
year = {2016}
}