High-Temperature QCD Static Potential beyond Leading Order

Abstract

We calculate the leading and next-to-leading corrections to the real-time QCD static potential in a high temperature medium in the region where bound states transit from narrow resonances to wide ones. We find sizable contributions to both the real and the imaginary part of the potential. The calculation involves both loop diagrams calculated in the Hard Thermal Loop (HTL) effective theory and power corrections to the HTL Lagrangian calculated in QCD. We compare our results with recent lattice data.

Comments: Improved presentation, expanded supplementary material and updated figures; published version