Symmetry of screening masses of mesons in two-flavor lattice QCD at high temperatures

Abstract

We investigate spatial two-point correlation functions of mesonic operators in two-flavor lattice QCD at high temperatures. The simulated temperatures over the range $T\in [147,330]$ MeV, where the critical temperature is estimated around 165 MeV. To ensure a good control of the chiral symmetry we employ the Möbius domain-wall fermion action for two degenerate flavors of quarks. With a lattice cut off $a^{-1}\sim 2.6$ GeV, the residual mass is reduced to 0.14 MeV. With the energy spectrum obtained from the screening mass at incremental values of the temperature range, we examine the $SU(2{)}_L\times SU(2{)}_R$ chiral symmetry, the anomalous axial $U(1)$ as well as an enhanced symmetry which exchanges the spin degrees of freedom. We also study how the data approaches the perturbative prediction given by twice the Matsubara frequency of free quarks.

Comments: 27 pages + 2 page appendix, 13 figures, v2 added author name to arXiv metadata, v3 added citations, additional footnotes, and reorganized appendix plots, v4 added DOI, additional plots and revisions from review