Polyakov loop correlators and cyclic Wilson loop from lattice QCD

Abstract

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 $N_{\tau }=4,6,8,10,12$. We present results in the continuum limit for temperatures up to $T\lesssim 650$ MeV and discuss the linear divergence of the cyclic Wilson loop.

Comments: 7 pages, 5 figures