The deconfined phase near Tc and its decay into hadrons

Abstract

We sketch an effective theory for the deconfined state of QCD near Tc. This relates the behavior of the expectation value of the Polyakov loop, and its two-point functions, to the pressure. Defining the ``mass'' of three and two gluon states from the imaginary and real parts of the Polyakov loop, while this ratio is 3:2 in perturbation theory, at Tc it is 3:1. We also discuss the decay of the deconfined state into hadrons.

Comments: 4 pages, no figures, Contribution to the Proceedings of "Quark Matter 2002", Nantes, France, 18-24 Jul 2002