HTL quasiparticle picture of the thermodynamics of QCD

Abstract

Starting from a nonperturbative expression for entropy and density obtained from $\Phi$-derivable two-loop approximations to the thermodynamic potential, a quasiparticle model for the thermodynamics of QCD can be developed which incorporates the physics of hard thermal loops and leads to a reorganization of the otherwise ill-behaved thermal perturbation theory through order ${\alpha }_s^{3/2}$. Some details of this reorganization are discussed and the differences to simpler quasiparticle models highlighted. A comparison with available lattice data shows remarkable agreement down to temperatures of $\sim 2.5T_c$.

Comments: Talk given at the International Conference on Statistical QCD, Bielefeld, Germany, August 26--30, 2001. 10 pages LATEX, 7 figures