Evaporation of the gluon condensate: a model for pure gauge SU(3)_c phase transition

Abstract

We interpret lattice data for the equation of state of pure gauge $SU(3{)}_c$ by an evaporation model. At low temperatures gluons are frozen inside the gluon condensate, whose dynamics is described in terms of a dilaton lagrangian. Above the critical temperature quasi-free gluons evaporate from the condensate: a first order transition is obtained by minimizing the thermodynamical potential of the system. Within the model it is possible to reproduce lattice QCD results at finite temperature for thermodynamical quantities such as pressure and energy. The gluonic longitudinal mass can also be evaluated; it vanishes below the critical temperature, where it shows a discontinuity. At very large temperatures we recover the perturbative scenario and gluons are the only asymptotic degrees of freedom.

Comments: 21 pages, 8 figures. Expanded version including a discussion of the asymptotic degrees of freedom and of the gluon mass