We study screening correlators of quark-antiquark composites at T=2T_c, where T_c is the QCD phase transition temperature, using overlap quarks in the quenched approximation of lattice QCD. As the lattice spacing is changed from 1/4T to a=1/6T and 1/8T, we find that screening correlators change little, in contrast with the situation for other types of lattice fermions. All correlators are close to the ideal gas prediction at small separations. The long distance falloff is clearly exponential, showing that a parametrization by a single screening length is possible at distances z > 1/T. The correlator corresponding to the thermal vector is close to the ideal gas value at all distances, whereas that for the thermal scalar deviates at large distances. This is examined through the screening lengths and momentum space correlators. There is strong evidence that the screening transfer matrix does not have reflection positivity.
We study the correlators of Polyakov loops, and the corresponding gauge invariant free energy of a static quark-antiquark pair in 2+1 flavor QCD at finite temperature. Our simulations were carried out on $N_t$ = 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 lattices using Symanzik improved gauge action and a stout improved staggered action with physical quark masses. The free energies calculated from the Polyakov loop correlators are extrapolated to the continuum limit. For the free energies we use a two step renormalization procedure that only uses data at finite temperature. We also measure correlators with definite Euc…
We investigate the mechanism of smearing in the APE, Stout, HYP and HEX schemes through their effect on glue and quark Fourier modes. Using this, we non-perturbatively tune the smearing parameters to their optimum values. Smearing causes a super-linear improvement in taste symmetry breaking in the high temperature phase of QCD. We use optimal smearing in the high temperature phase and find close agreement of meson screening masses with weak coupling predictions.
We report on the results of our calculation of meson correlators in a finite volume. The calculation is carried out in the quenched approximation near the chiral limit (down to Mq = 2.6 MeV) using the overlap fermion. For these small quark masses, the scalar and pseudo-scalar correlators are well approximated with a few hundred eigenmodes. The results for both connected and disconnected correlators are compared with the theoretical predictions of quenched chiral perturbation theory.
We investigate the real and imaginary chemical-potential dependence of pion and $ρ$-meson screening masses in both the confinement and the deconfinement region by using two-flavor lattice QCD. The spatial meson correlators are calculated in the imaginary chemical potential region with lattice QCD simulations. We extract pion and $ρ$-meson screening masses from the correlators. The obtained meson screening masses are extrapolated to the real chemical potential region by assuming some analytic function. In the real chemical potential region, the resulting pion and $ρ$-meson screening masses mono…
We investigate screening masses at both sides of the first order finite temperature transition with 3 quark flavors using the nonperturbatively improved clover fermion action and the Iwasaki gauge action. We have developed the method of hierarchical truncations with stochastic probing to accelerate the noise estimator for evaluating quark loops at every spatial lattice slices. At parameter values we study, the flavor singlet scalar meson has a screening mass about half of the pion screening mass. It becomes lighter as the system approaches the critical endpoint.
Colorelectric and Colormagnetic structure of the flux tubes, connecting heavy quark and antiquark, is investigated in the framework of the Field Correlator method which describes all resulting fields in terms of correlators $D^E$ and $D^E_1$. The latter have been computed via gluelumps, which allows to predict the resulting distribution of color fields $\mathbf{E} (\mathbf{r}),$ and colormagnetic currents $\mathbf{k} (\mathbf{r})$ in the flux tubes. It is shown, that at large distances $r\gg λ\approx 0.2$ fm the whole structure of fields and relations between them is similar to that of the dua…
Chiral perturbation theory gives direct and unambiguous predictions for the form of various two-point hadronic correlators at low momentum in terms of a finite set of couplings in a chiral Lagrangian. In this paper we study the feasibility of extracting the couplings in the chiral Lagrangian (through 1-loop order) by fitting two-point correlators computed in lattice QCD to the predicted chiral form. The correlators are computed using a pseudofermion technique yielding all-point quark propagators which allows the computation of the full four-momentum transform of the two-point functions to be o…
We study the correlators of Polyakov loops, and the corresponding gauge invariant free energy of a static quark-antiquark pair in 2+1 flavor QCD at finite temperature. Our simulations were carried out on $N_t$ = 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 lattices using a Symanzik improved gauge action and a stout improved staggered action with physical quark masses. The free energies calculated from the Polyakov loop correlators are extrapolated to the continuum limit. For the free energies we use a two step renormalization procedure that only uses data at finite temperature. We also measure correlators with definite E…
Hadronic correlation functions at finite temperature in QCD, with four flavours of dynamical quarks, have been analyzed both above and below the chiral symmetry restoration temperature. We have used both point and extended sources for spatial as well as temporal correlators. The effect of periodic temporal boundary conditions for the valence quarks on the spatial meson correlators has also been investigated. All our results are consistent with the existence of individual quarks at high temperatures. A measurement of the residual interaction between the quarks is presented.
We compute the two-point correlator between left-handed flavour charges, and the three-point correlator between two left-handed charges and one strangeness violating ΔI=3/2 weak operator, at next-to-leading order in finite volume SU(3)_L x SU(3)_R chiral perturbation theory, in the so-called epsilon-regime. Matching these results with the corresponding lattice measurements would in principle allow to extract the pion decay constant F, and the effective chiral theory parameter g_27, which determines the ΔI = 3/2 amplitude of the weak decays K to ππas well as the kaon mixing parameter B_K in the…
The phase diagram for the compact lattice QED with Wilson fermions is shown. We discuss different methods for the calculation of the 'pion' mass $m_π$ near the chiral transition point $κ_c(β)$.
We investigate mesonic screening correlators at T=2T_c using the overlap Fermions in the quenched approximation, where T_c is the QCD phase transition temperature. Using lattices with temporal extent up to 8, we found that both pseudoscalar and vector correlators exhibit a nice $cosh$ behaviour, leading to a plateau behaviour in the local screening masses as a function of distance. The rho and pi masses so determined show very little variation with the lattice spacing a. This augurs well for the use of chiral Fermions, and further suggests the small deviations of these masses from the ideal ga…
Knowledge of the screening masses at finite chemical potential can provide insight into the nature of the QCD phase diagram. However, lattice studies at finite chemical potential suffer from the well-known issue of the sign problem, which has made the calculation of observables such as screening correlators and screening masses at finite chemical potential quite challenging. One way to proceed is by expanding the observable in a Taylor series in the chemical potential and hence calculating the finite-density corrections to the observable. In this talk, we will use this approach to calculate th…
We study the bottomonium screening masses in a 2+1 flavor QCD medium on the lattice using the Highly Improved Staggered Quark(HISQ) discretization for the quarks. We focus on a wide temperature range in the region $350~{\rm MeV}\le T < 1000 ~{\rm MeV}$, and perform our calculations on three different lattice spacings to control the lattice cut-off effects, corresponding to temporal lattice extent of $N_τ=8,10,12$. From a detailed study of the temperature dependence of screening masses we conclude that while the $η_b(1S)$ and $Υ(1S)$ states melt at $T>500$ MeV, the scalar and axial-vector state…
Correlators of magnetic and electric field energy density are investigated for SU($N_c$) gauge theory at high temperatures $T$. At separations $z\leq 2/T$ the correlators are shown to be dominated by a power--law behavior even for finite gluon screening masses. This continuum behavior is well approximated on current $4\times 16^3$--lattices in the perturbative limit and leads to a considerable overestimate of screening masses deduced from fitting the lattice correlators with conventional exponential forms. The use of extended sources and sinks to enhance the signal improves the situation for s…
The results of a high-statistics study of scalar and pseudoscalar meson propagators in quenched lattice QCD are presented. For two values of lattice spacing, $β=5.7$ ($a \approx .18$ fm) and 5.9 ($a \approx .12$ fm), we probe the light quark mass region using clover improved Wilson fermions with the MQA pole-shifting ansatz to treat the exceptional configuration problem. The quenched chiral loop parameters $m_0$ and $α_Φ$ are determined from a study of the pseudoscalar hairpin correlator. From a global fit to the meson correlators, estimates are obtained for the relevant chiral Lagrangian para…
We present a quenched calculation of meson correlators with the overlap fermion at very small masses 2.6--13 MeV. In this region the pion Compton wavelength is larger than our lattice size L\simeq 1.23fm and the system is in the so-called epsilon-regime of chiral perturbation theory. We found that the scalar and pseudo-scalar correlators are precisely approximated by a few hundred low-lying fermion eigenmodes in this regime, whereas axial-vector correlator receives significant contributions from higher eigenmodes. We also measure the disconnected pseudo-scalar correlator, which is well saturat…
We study the scalar and pseudoscalar condensations and the eta^prime meson correlators of the two-flavor massive Schwinger model in the non-zero theta vacuum. Exploiting our new method which was developed to investigate topological effects in the previous work, we find that the pseudoscalar condensation is non-zero and there exists a long-range correlation of the eta^prime meson. This phenomenon is well described by the clustering property. We also find that even in theta=0 case the cancellation of the long-range correlation is nontrivial and requires accurate contributions from higher topolog…
We study Polyakov loop as well as correlators of real and imaginary parts of the Polyakov loop in 2+1 flavor QCD at finite temperature. We use hypercubic (HYP) smearing to improve the signal in the lattice calculations and to obtain reliable results for the correlators at large distances. From the large distance behavior of the correlators we estimate the chromo-electric screening length to be (0.38-44)/T. Furthermore, we show that the short distance distortions due to HYP smearing do not affect the physics of interest
We apply different types of overlap operators in quenched QCD simulations to compute the zero mode contribution to the pseudo-scalar correlator. In particular we use the conventional Neuberger Dirac operator and the overlap hypercube Dirac operator. Confronting our data with the analytical predictions by Chiral Perturbation Theory we evaluate the pion decay constant and the parameter αof the quenched chiral Lagrangian.
Screening of the topological charge due to he fermion-induced interactions is an important phenomenon, closely related with the resolution of the strong CP and U(1) problems. We study the mechanism of such screening in a 'correlated instanton vacuum', as opposed to the 'random' one. Both scalar and pseudoscalar gluonic correlators are analyzed by means of an observable that minimizes finite size effects. Screening of the topological charge is established. This allows us to calculate the $η'$ mass without having to invert the Dirac operator. We suggest that this method might be used in lattice …
Completion of the Svetitsky-Yaffe conjecture in some (2+1) dimensional SU(N) gauge theories allows mapping Polyakov loops in higher representations of the gauge group into suitable conformal operators of the corresponding 2D CFT. As a consequence, the critical exponents of the correlators of these Polyakov loops are determined. The functional form of these correlators suggests a general Ansatz to describe the large-distance screening of higher-representation sources at zero temperature in any space-time dimension. A generalised Wilson loop in which along part of its trajectory a source is conv…
We present a strategy to study QCD non-perturbatively on the lattice at very high temperatures. This strategy exploits a non-perturbative, finite-volume, definition of the strong coupling constant to renormalize the theory. As a first application we compute the flavor non-singlet mesonic screening masses in a wide range of temperature, from $T\sim 1 $ GeV up to $\sim 160 $ GeV with three flavors in the chiral limit of QCD. Our results show very interesting features of the screening spectrum at very high temperatures. On one hand the mass splitting between the vector and the pseudoscalar screen…
We discuss color screening in 2+1 flavor QCD in terms of free energies of a static quark-antiquark pair. Thermal modifications of long distance correlations in quark-antiquark systems are studied in terms of static meson correlators. We calculate the Polyakov loop correlator, the color-singlet Wilson line correlator in Coulomb gauge and the cyclic Wilson loop on lattices using the HISQ/Tree action and almost physical quark mases with $N_τ= 4, 6, 8, 10, 12$. We present results in the continuum limit for temperatures up to $T \lesssim 650$ MeV and discuss the linear divergence of the cyclic Wils…
The SU(3) octet SS-PP correlator and the difference of the singlet and octet scalar correlators are computed within Resonance Chiral Theory. The calculation is carried on up to the one-loop level, i.e., up to next-to-leading order in the 1/Nc expansion. Using the resonance expressions as interpolators between long and short distances, we demand the correlators to follow the high-energy power behavior prescribed by the operator product expansion and extract predictions for the low-energy constants. By adding more and more complicated operators to the hadronic action, our description is progress…
Using quenched chiral perturbation theory, we compute the long-distance behaviour of two-point functions of flavour non-singlet axial and vector currents in a finite volume, for small quark masses, and at a fixed gauge-field topology. We also present the corresponding predictions for the unquenched theory at fixed topology. These results can in principle be used to measure the low-energy constants of the chiral Lagrangian, from lattice simulations in volumes much smaller than one pion Compton wavelength. We show that quenching has a dramatic effect on the vector correlator, which is argued to …
We study the behavior of the isovector scalar correlator, which is particularly sensitive to lattice artifacts, using domain-wall valence quarks on a staggered sea (generated by the MILC collaboration). We analyze this according to the prediction from chiral perturbation theory determined by Prelovsek, which indicates that the leading unitarity violations come from taste breaking effects. We show that our data behaves in the way predicted by Prelovsek, thus verifying that the largest contribution to the violations of unitarity which arise at finite lattice spacing can be described by the mixed…
We present a study of the pseudoscalar propagator in the mixed chiral regime with valence quark masses in the ε-regime and sea quark masses in the p-regime. We first show the NNLO prediction of this observable in the chiral expansion. In sectors of fixed topology, the correlator has a pole in 1/m_v^2 that can be matched to the topological zero-mode contributions to the correlator. We compute the residue of this pole in a N_f=2 mixed-action simulation and compare the results with the prediction in Chiral Perturbation Theory.
We provide the analytic predictions for the flavor non-singlet scalar correlator, which will enable determination of the scalar meson mass from the lattice scalar correlator. We consider simulations with 2+1 staggered sea quarks and staggered or chiral valence quarks. At small u/d masses the correlator is dominated by the bubble contribution, which is the intermediate state with two pseudoscalar mesons. We determine the bubble contribution within Staggered and Mixed Chiral Perturbation Theory. Its effective mass is smaller than the mass M_pi+M_eta, which is the lightest intermediate state in p…
We study the volume dependence of the left-current correlator with non-degenerate quark masses to next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion. We consider three possible regimes: all quark masses are in the $ε$-regime, all are in the $p$-regime and a mixed-regime where the lighest quark masses satisfy $m_v ΣV \leq 1$ while the heavier $m_s ΣV \gg 1$. These results can be used to match lattice QCD and the Chiral Effective Theory in a large but finite box in which the Compton wavelength of the lightest pions is of the order of the box size. We consider both the full and partially-quenched resu…
We study correlation functions of spatially separated static quark-antiquark pairs in $2+1$ flavor QCD in order to investigate the nature of color screening at high temperatures. We perform lattice calculations in a wide temperature range, $116~\text{MeV} \leq T \leq 5814~\text{MeV}$, using the highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) action and several lattice spacings to control discretization effects. We alleviate the UV noise problem through the use of four dimensional hypercubic (HYP) smearing, which enables the reconstruction of correlators and determination of screening properties even at…
WWithin mixed-action chiral perturbation theory (MA$χ$PT), Sasa's derivation of the bubble contribution to scalar $a_0$ meson is extended to those of scalar $κ$ and $σ$ mesons. We revealed that $κ$ bubble has two double poles and $σ$ bubble contains a quadratic-in-$t^2$ growth factor stemming from the multiplication of two double poles for a general mass tuning of valence quarks and sea quarks. The corresponding preliminary analytical expressions in MA$χ$PT with 2+1 chiral valence quarks and 2+1 staggered sea quarks will be helpful for lattice studies of scalar mesons.
Using non-perturbative lattice method we studied hadronic screening correlators above and immediately below the deconfinement transition temperature, Tc, in the quenched approximation with lattice spacing of 1/(8T) using clover improved Wilson fermions. Simulations were performed at temperatures T /Tc = 0, 0.95 and 1.5. Mesonic screening correlators show no statistically significant thermal effects below Tc, and clear evidence for weakly interacting quarks above Tc . Baryon screening correlators yield similar physics above Tc, but show precursor effects for chiral symmetry restoration below Tc…
We extend our earlier results concerning the breaking of the U_A(1) symmetry in finite temperature QCD. In particular, we use topological arguments to investigate the chiral limit.
The flavor-singlet component of the eta prime meson is related to the topological structure of the SU(3) gauge field through the chiral anomaly. We perform a 2+1-flavor lattice QCD calculation and demonstrate that the two-point function of a gluonically defined topological charge density after a short Yang-Mills gradient flow contains the propagation of the eta prime meson, by showing that its mass in the chiral and continuum limit is consistent with the experimental value. The gluonic correlator does not suffer from the contamination of the pion contribution, and the clean signal is obtained …
We calculate the meson correlators in the $ε$-regime of two-flavor QCD. On a $16^3\times 32$ lattice with $a\sim 0.11$ fm, the lattice simulations are performed with the dynamical overlap fermions. We reduce the sea quark mass down to $\sim$ 3 MeV and the valence quark masses are taken in the range 1-4 MeV. The meson correlators in various channels are compared with the predictions of (partially quenched) chiral perturbation theory (ChPT). Including the NLO order of the $ε$-expansion, we extract the leading-order low energy constants of ChPT, the pion decay constant $F$ and the chiral condensa…
We derive an analytic expression for point-to-point correlation functions of the Polyakov loop based on the transfer matrix formalism. For the $2d$ Ising model we show that the results deduced from point-point spin correlators are coinciding with those from zero momentum correlators. We investigate the contributions from eigenvalues of the transfer matrix beyond the mass gap and discuss the limitations and possibilities of such an analysis. The finite size behaviour of the obtained $2d$ Ising model matrix elements is examined. The point-to-point correlator formula is then applied to Polyakov l…
A method for computing all-point quark propagators is applied to a variety of processes of physical interest in lattice QCD. The method allows, for example, efficient calculation of disconnected parts and full momentum-space 2 and 3 point functions. Examples discussed include: extraction of chiral Lagrangian parameters from current correlators, the pion form factor, and the unquenched eta-prime.
We calculate mesonic two-point functions in the epsilon-regime of two-flavor QCD on the lattice with exact chiral symmetry. We use gauge configurations of size 16^3 32 at the lattice spacing a \sim 0.11 fm generated with dynamical overlap fermions. The sea quark mass is fixed at \sim 3 MeV and the valence quark mass is varied in the range 1-4 MeV, both of which are in the epsilon-regime. We find a good consistency with the expectations from the next-to-leading order calculation in the epsilon-expansion of (partially quenched) chiral perturbation theory. From a fit we obtain the pion decay cons…
We investigate a new numerical procedure to compute fermionic correlation functions at very small quark masses. Large statistical fluctuations, due to the presence of local ``bumps'' in the wave functions associated with the low-lying eigenmodes of the Dirac operator, are reduced by an exact low-mode averaging. To demonstrate the feasibility of the technique, we compute the two-point correlator of the left-handed vector current with Neuberger fermions in the quenched approximation, for lattices with a linear extent of L~1.5 fm, a lattice spacing a~0.09 fm, and quark masses down to the epsilon-…
This is an exploratory study of the lightest non-singlet scalar $q\bar q$ state on the lattice with two dynamical quarks. Domain Wall fermions are used for both sea and valence quarks on a 16^3*32 lattice with an inverse lattice spacing of 1.7 GeV. We extract the scalar meson mass 1.58(34) GeV from the exponential time-dependence of the dynamical correlators with $m_{val}=m_{sea}$ and N_f=2. Since this statistical error-bar from dynamical correlators is rather large, we analyze also the partially quenched lattice correlators with $m_{val}$ not equal $m_{sea}$. They are positive for $m_{val}>=m…
We consider corrections to nucleon correlation functions arising from times that are far from the asymptotic limit. For such times, the single nucleon state is contaminated by the pion-nucleon and pion-delta continuum. We use heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory to derive the spectral representation of the nucleon two-point function. Finite time corrections to the axial current correlation function are also derived. Pion-nucleon excited state contributions drive the axial correlator upward, while contributions from the interference of pion-delta and pion-nucleon states drive the axial corre…
Screening correlators and masses were studied at finite temperature in QCD with two flavours of dynamical staggered quarks on a lattice. The spectrum of screening masses show a hierarchical approach to chiral symmetry restoration. Control of explicit chiral symmetry breaking through the quark mass was shown to be an important step to understanding this phenomenon. No sign of decays was found in the finite temperature scalar meson-like correlators in the confined phase.
We calculate the electric screening mass in hot hadronic matter using two different approaches, chiral perturbation theory and the relativistic virial expansion with empirical phase shifts, and compare the results to each other and to a gas of free pions and $ρ$ mesons. We also compute the electric screening mass for noninteracting, charged bosons with mass $m$ on a lattice to study likely finite size effects in lattice gauge theory simulations of continuum QCD. For a lattice of given size, the continuum can be properly represented only for a window in the ratio $T/m$.
We derive the formal Ward identities relating pseudoscalar susceptibilities and quark condensates in three-flavor QCD, including consistently the $η$-$η'$ sector and the $U_A(1)$ anomaly. These identities are verified in the low-energy realization provided by ChPT, both in the standard $SU(3)$ framework for the octet case and combining the use of the $U(3)$ framework and the large-$N_c$ expansion of QCD to account properly for the nonet sector and anomalous contributions. The analysis is performed including finite temperature corrections as well as the calculation of $U(3)$ quark condensates a…
Techniques to compute hadron properties from lattice QCD rely upon the limit of long time separation. For baryons, the signal-to-noise problem often restricts one to time separations that are not ideally long, and for which couplings to excited states can obstruct the isolation of ground-state baryon properties. We consider excited-state contamination in nucleon two- and three-point functions. Using chiral perturbation theory, we determine couplings to pion-nucleon and pion-delta excited states. In two-point functions, these contributions are small, in accordance with general properties of the…
The temperature of the chiral restoration phase transition at 130 MeV as well as the temperature of the center symmetry ("deconfinement") phase transition in a pure glue theory at 300 MeV are two independent temperatures and their interplay determines a structure of different regimes of hot QCD. Given a chiral spin symmetry of the color charge and of the chromoelectric interaction we can conclude from observed symmetries of spatial and temporal correlators of N_F=2 QCD with domain wall Dirac operator at physical quark masses that above the chiral symmetry restoration crossover around T_pc but …
The properties of (N X N)-matrix-valued-field theories, in the limit N goes to infinity, are harder to obtain than those for isovector-valued field theories. This is because we know less about the sum of planar diagrams than the sum of bubble/linear diagrams. Combining the 1/N-expansion with the axioms for form factors, exact form factors can be found for the integrable field theory of an SU(N)-valued field in 1+1 dimensions. These form factors can be used to find the vacuum expectation value of the product of two field operators. We briefly mention how the results can be applied to 2+1 dimens…
We point out that chiral condensates at nonzero temperature and magnetic fields are in strict connection to the space-time integral of corresponding two-point neutral meson correlation functions in the pseudoscalar channel via the Ward-Takahashi identity. Screening masses of neutral pseudoscalar mesons, which are defined as the exponential decay of the corresponding spatial correlation functions in the long distance, thus are intrinsically connected to (inverse) magnetic catalysis of chiral condensates. To study this we performed lattice simulations of $(2+1)$-flavor QCD on $32^3\times N_t$ la…
The behaviour of the topological susceptibility in QCD with two colours and 8 flavours of quarks is studied at nonzero temperature on the lattice across the finite density transition. It is shown that its signal drops at a (pseudo-)critical chemical potential mu_c. The Polyakov loop and the chiral condensate undergo their transitions at the same value. Pauli blocking supervenes at a value of the chemical potential larger than mu_c.
In a dynamical lattice simulation with the overlap Dirac operator and $N_f=2$ mass degenerate quarks we study all possible $J=0$ and $J=1$ correlators upon exclusion of the low lying "quasi-zero" modes from the valence quark propagators. After subtraction of a small amount of such Dirac eigenmodes all disconnected contributions vanish and all possible point-to-point $J=0$ correlators with different quantum numbers become identical, signaling a restoration of the $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R \times U(1)_A$. The original ground state of the $π$ meson does not survive this truncation, however. In cont…
We present results for screening masses of light and strange mesons in 2+1 flavour QCD using improved (p4fat3) staggered fermions on 6x24^3 lattices. We have studied the screening masses of scalar, pseudo-scalar, vector and axial-vector mesons along the line of constant physics, determined by a pion mass ~220 MeV and a kaon mass ~500 MeV. In order to investigate the cut-off and volume dependencies we have also performed studies of the meson screening correlators in the non-interacting theory using the p4 and the standard staggered discretizations.
We incorporate the effective restoration of $U(1)_{\rm A}$ symmetry in the 2+1 flavor entanglement Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (EPNJL) model by introducing a temperature-dependent strength $K(T)$ to the Kobayashi-Maskawa-'t Hooft (KMT) determinant interaction. $T$ dependence of $K(T)$ is well determined from pion and $a_0$-meson screening masses obtained by lattice QCD (LQCD) simulations with improved p4 staggered fermions. The strength is strongly suppressed in the vicinity of the pseudocritical temperature of chiral transition. The EPNJL model with the $K(T)$ well reproduces m…
