Exploring the gluoN_c plasma

Abstract

We report lattice computations in SU(N_c) pure gauge theory, where N_c is increased beyond the physical value of 3. We demonstrate two-loop scaling of T_c, thus obtaining the variation of T_c/Lambda_MSbar with N_c, and fixing the temperature scale. We study the equation of state of the gluoN_c plasma, the conformal anomaly, and the approach to the weak coupling theory. We find that the weak-coupling prediction is always closer to the lattice data than the conformal field theory is.

Comments: 4 pages, 4 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Matter 2009, March 30 - April 4, Knoxville, Tennessee