Yang-Mills Thermodynamics: an Effective Theory Approach

We derive the Polyakov-loop thermodynamic potential in the perturbative approach to pure SU(3) Yang-Mills theory. The potential expressed in terms of the Polyakov loop in the fundamental representation corresponds to that of the strong-coupling expansion, of which the relevant coefficients of the gluon energy distribution are specified by characters of the SU(3) group. At high temperatures the derived gluon potential exhibits the correct asymptotic behavior, whereas at low temperatures, it disfavors gluons as appropriate dynamical degrees of freedom. In order to quantify the Yang-Mills thermodynamics in a confined phase, we propose a hybrid approach which matches the effective gluon potential to the one of glueballs constrained by the QCD trace anomaly in terms of a dilaton. We also discuss the interplay between the chromomagnetic and chromoelectric gluon dynamics.