Effective Theory of Wilson Lines and Deconfinement.pdfVIP

Effective Theory of Wilson Lines and Deconfinement Robert D. Pisarski Department of Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973, U.S.A. (Dated: February 2, 2008) To study the deconfining phase transition at nonzero temperature, I outline the perturbative construction of an effective theory for straight, thermal Wilson lines. Certain large, time dependent gauge transformations play a central role. They imply the existence of interfaces, which can be used to determine the form of the effective theory as a gauged, nonlinear sigma model of adjoint matrices. Especially near the transition, the Wilson line may undergo a Higgs effect. As an adjoint field, this can generate eigenvalue repulsion in the effective theory. 6 0 2 Recent results at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider couplings, κ and κ , ∼ α , with each a power series in 0 1 2 s (RHIC) demonstrate qualitatively new behavior for the α . 2 s c collisions of heavy ions at high energies [1]. RHIC ap- This effective theory represents an optimal resumma- pears to have entered a region above T , the temperature tion of perturbation theory. As such, it