The gluon propagator close to criticality
Abstract
The deconfinement phase transition of pure Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature is reflected in the behavior of gauge-fixed gluonic correlation functions. This is one of many examples of how physical information can be extracted from gauge-dependent correlations which is not always obvious. Here, we study the behavior of the Landau-gauge gluon propagator of pure SU(2) across the phase transition in 2+1 and 3+1 dimensions in order to assess to what extend the corresponding critical behavior is reflected in these correlations. We discuss why it should emerge from a continuum perspective and test our expectations in lattice simulations. A comparison with SU(3) furthermore reveals quite clear indications for a sensitivity of the gluon propagator to the order of the transition.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1110.6340,
title = {The gluon propagator close to criticality},
author = {Axel Maas and Jan M. Pawlowski and Lorenz von Smekal and Daniel Spielmann},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1110.6340},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
14 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables; v2: added an appendix on statistical errors, added error bands to figures, some further minor modifications, version which appeared in PRD