Spatial structure of screening propagators in hot QCD

Abstract

We use numerical simulations to study the spatial structure of a quark and an antiquark in the imaginary-time excitations which mediate the Debye screening of color singlet sources in the high-temperature phase of QCD. We find that these correlation functions are very similar to the zero-temperature wave functions of the corresponding particles. This result contrasts with results on the ρ and nucleon screening lengths for these sources, which are well described by a gas of free or weakly interacting quarks.