We calculate chiral susceptibilities in (2+1)-flavour QCD for different masses of the light quarks using the functional renormalisation group (fRG) approach to first-principles QCD. We follow the evolution of the chiral susceptibilities with decreasing masses as obtained from both the light-quark and the reduced quark condensate. The latter compares very well with recent results from the HotQCD collaboration for pion masses $m_π\gtrsim 100\,\text{MeV}$. For smaller pion masses, the fRG and lattice results are still consistent. In particular, the estimates for the chiral critical temperature are in very good agreement. We close by discussing different extrapolations to the chiral limit.
We reanalyse the topological susceptibility assuming the possibility of a significant paramagnetic suppression of the three-flavour quark condensate and a correlated enhancement of vacuum fluctuations of $s\bar{s}$ pairs. Using the framework of resummed ChPT, we point out that simulations performed near the physical point, with a significant mass hierarchy between u,d and s dynamical quarks, are not able to disentangle the contributions from the quark condensate and sea $s\bar{s}$-pair fluctuations, and that simulations with three light quark masses of the same order are better suited for this…
The first two non-trivial moments of the distribution of the topological charge (or gluonic winding number), i.e., the topological susceptibility and the fourth cumulant, can be computed in lattice QCD simulations and exploited to constrain the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking. We compute these two topological observables at next-to-leading order in three-flavour Chiral Perturbation Theory, and we discuss the role played by the eta propagation in these expressions. For hierarchies of light-quark masses close to the physical situation, we show that the fourth cumulant has a much better sensi…
We propose that in QCD with dynamical quarks, colour deconfinement occurs when an external field induced by the chiral condensate strongly aligns the Polyakov loop. This effect sets in at the chiral symmetry restoration temperature T-chi and thus makes deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration coincide. The predicted singular behaviour of Polyakov loop susceptibilities at T-chi is shown to be supported by finite temperature lattice calculations.
We present a calculation of the finite volume corrections to meson masses and decay constants in three flavour Partially Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory (PQChPT) through two-loop order in the chiral expansion for the flavour-charged (or off-diagonal) pseudoscalar mesons. The analytical results are obtained for three sea quark flavours with one, two or three different masses. We reproduce the known infinite volume results and the finite volume results in the unquenched case. The calculation has been performed using the supersymmetric formulation of PQChPT as well as with a quark-flow techni…
A calculation of the pion mass and decay constant at NNNLO in two-flavour chiral perturbation theory is presented. The results are cross-checked by using both the exponential and square root parameterizations of the Goldstone matrix field, as well as by comparing to the known leading log coefficients of the two quantities. A small numerical study of the quark mass dependence is performed, and for a physical quark mass there is good agreement with lower order results.
We present results for the masses of pseudoscalar mesons in twisted mass lattice QCD with a degenerate doublet of u and d quarks and a non-degenerate doublet of s and c quarks in the framework of next-to-leading order chiral perturbation theory, including lattice effects up to O(a^2). The masses depend on the two twist angles for the light and heavy sectors. For maximal twist in both sectors, O(a)-improvement is explicitly exhibited. The mixing of flavour-neutral mesons is also discussed, and results in the literature for the case of degenerate s and c quarks are corrected.
An important tool for the analysis of results of numerical simulations of lattice QCD is chiral perturbation theory. In Wilson chiral perturbation theory the effects of the finite lattice spacing $a$ are taken into account. In recent years the effects of isospin splitting on the masses of hadrons have been investigated in Monte Carlo simulations. Correspondingly, in this article we derive the expansions of the masses of the pseudoscalar mesons in chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order for twisted mass lattice QCD with three light quark flavours, taking the mass difference between …
We extend a known method to integrate out the strange quark in three flavour chiral perturbation theory to the context of an arbitrary number of flavours. As an application, we present the explicit formulae to one--loop accuracy for the heavy quark mass dependency of the low energy constants after decreasing the number of flavours by one while integrating out the heaviest quark in N--flavour chiral perturbation theory.
The chiral symmetry of QCD with two massless quark flavours gets restored in a non-analytic chiral phase transition at finite temperature and zero density. Whether this is a first-order or a second-order transition has not yet been determined unambiguously, due to the difficulties of simulating light quarks. We investigate the nature of the chiral transition as a function of quark mass and imaginary chemical potential, using staggered fermions on N_t=4 lattices. At sufficiently large imaginary chemical potential, a clear signal for a first-order transition is obtained for small masses, which w…
We present results for the chiral and deconfinement transition of two flavor QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential. To this end we study the quark condensate and its dual, the dressed Polyakov loop, with functional methods using a set of Dyson-Schwinger equations. The quark-propagator is determined self-consistently within a truncation scheme including temperature and in-medium effects of the gluon propagator. For the chiral transition we find a crossover turning into a first order transition at a critical endpoint at large quark chemical potential, $μ_{EP}/T_{EP} \approx 3$. For th…
We propose that in QCD with dynamical quarks, colour deconfinement occurs when an external field induced by the chiral condensate strongly aligns the Polyakov loop. This effect sets in at the chiral symmetry restoration temperature $T_χ$ and thus makes deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration coincide. The predicted singular behavior of Polyakov loop susceptibilities at $T_χ$ is shown to be supported by finite temperature lattice calculations.
The relation between the chiral quark condensate in QCD sum rules and chiral perturbation theory is clarified with the help of a low-energy theorem for the scalar and pseudoscalar correlation functions. It is found that the quark condensate should be identified with the non-normal-ordered vacuum expectation value of quark-antiquark fields. Utilising results on flavour SU(3) breaking of the quark condensate from QCD sum rules, the unphysical low-energy constant H_2^r in the chiral Lagrangian, as well as next-to-leading order corrections to the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation are estimated.
The (light but not-so-light) strange quark may play a special role in the low-energy dynamics of QCD. The presence of strange quark pairs in the sea may have a significant impact of the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking : in particular large differences can occur between the chiral limits of two and three massless flavours (i.e., whether m_s is kept at its physical value or sent to zero). This may induce problems of convergence in three-flavour chiral expansions. To cope with such difficulties, we introduce a new framework, called Resummed Chiral Perturbation Theory. We exploit it to analyse…
We determine the second order endpoint of the line of first order phase transitions, which occur in the light quark mass regime of 3-flavour QCD at finite temperature, and analyze universal properties of this chiral critical point. A detailed analysis of Binder cumulants and the joint probability distributions of energy like and ordering-field like observables confirms that the chiral critical point belongs to the universality class of the three dimensional Ising model. From a calculation with improved gauge and staggered fermion actions we estimate that the transition is first order for pseud…
We estimate the slope of the topological susceptibility in the three flavour Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with the 't Hooft interaction. The results are consistent with the evaluation from the QCD sum rule in favour of the full topological susceptibility. We apply it to the Shore-Veneziano formula to find that it shows satisfactory agreement with the anomalous suppression of the flavour-singlet axial charge. The behaviour at finite temperature is also discussed.
We present data for the axial coupling constant g_A of the nucleon obtained in lattice QCD with two degenerate flavours of dynamical non-perturbatively improved Wilson quarks. The renormalisation is also performed non-perturbatively. For the analysis we give a chiral extrapolation formula for g_A based on the small scale expansion scheme of chiral effective field theory for two degenerate quark flavours. Applying this formalism in a finite volume we derive a formula that allows us to extrapolate our data simultaneously to the infinite volume and to the chiral limit. Using the additional lattic…
We determine the flavour dependence of the renormalisation-group-invariant running interaction through judicious use of both unquenched Dyson-Schwinger equation and lattice results for QCD's gauge-sector two-point functions. An important step is the introduction of a physical scale setting procedure that enables a realistic expression of the effect of different numbers of active quark flavours on the interaction. Using this running interaction in concert with a well constrained class of dressed--gluon-quark vertices, we estimate the critical number of active lighter-quarks above which dynamica…
We calculate the finite volume corrections to meson masses and decay constants in two and three flavour Chiral Perturbation Theory to two-loop order. The analytical results are compared with the existing result for the pion mass in two-flavour ChPT and the partial results for the other quantities. We present numerical results for all quantities.
The current state of knowledge of the order parameters of the spontaneously broken chiral symmetry, the quark condensate and the pseudoscalar decay constant in the chiral limit, is briefly reviewed, based on available phenomenological fits and lattice QCD calculations. We argue that while the theory is pretty well understood in the two-flavour case, there is still a gap in the knowledge of the characteristics of the QCD vacuum in the three-flavour one. Our constraints for the three-flavour parameters obtained by a Bayesian statistical analysis of the decays of eta to three pions are presented.…
In the early days of QCD, the axial $U(1)$ anomaly was considered as a trigger for the breaking of the $SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R$ symmetry through topological excitations of gluon fields. However, it has been a challenge for lattice QCD to quantify the effect. In this work, we simulate QCD at high temperatures with chiral fermions. The exact chiral symmetry enables us to separate the contribution from the axial $U(1)$ breaking from others among the susceptibilities in the scalar and pseudoscalar channels. Our result in two-flavor QCD indicates that the chiral susceptibility, which is conventional…
Previous work relating the flavour variation of the chiral order parameters $F_π$, $<\bar u u>$ and S-wave scattering data, based on chiral sum rules and chiral perturbation theory at order $p^4$, is extended to include $O(p^6)$ corrections. The finding of a significant decrease of these order parameters, particularly $<\bar u u>$, with the number of flavours increasing from $N_F=2$ to $N_F=3$ is confirmed, modulo an assumption on the convergence of the chiral expansion. The connection between scalar resonance physics and the phase structure of the chiral vacuum is also illustrated on the basi…
We have computed the chiral susceptibility in quark-gluon plasma in presence of finite chemical potential and weak magnetic field within hard thermal loop approximation. First we construct the massive effective quark propagator in a thermomagnetic medium. Then we obtain completely analytic expression for the chiral susceptibility in weak magnetic field approximation. In the absence of magnetic field the thermal chiral susceptibility increases in presence of finite chemical potential. The effect of thermomagnetic correction is found to be very marginal as temperature is the dominant scale in we…
Fermionic theories with a vanishing chiral condensate (in the chiral limit) have recently attracted considerable interest; in particular variants of multi-flavour QCD are candidates for this behaviour. Here we consider the 2-flavour Schwinger model as a simple theory with this property. Based on simulations with light dynamical overlap fermions, we test the hypothesis that in such models the low lying Dirac eigenvalues could be decorrelated. That has been observed in 4d Yang-Mills theories at high temperature, but it cannot be confirmed for the 2-flavour Schwinger model. We also discuss subtle…
The vector and axial-vector two-point functions are calculated to next-to-next-to-leading order in Chiral Perturbation Theory for three light flavours. We also obtain expressions at the same order for the masses, $m_π^2$, $m_K^2$ and $m_η^2$, and the decay constants, $F_π$, $F_K$ and $F_η$. We present some numerical results after a simple resonance estimate of some of the new ${\cal O}(p^6)$ constants.
We investigate topology in lattice simulations of QCD with two flavours of dynamical Wilson fermions. At various sea quark masses we find reasonable agreement between results for the topological charge from fermionic and gluonic definitions, the latter with cooling. We study correlations of the topological charge with light hadronic observables and find effects in the flavour singlet pseudoscalar channel. The quark mass dependence of the topological susceptibility, $χ$, is in agreement with the leading order small m_pi expectation, chi=(f_pi m_pi)^2/4.
We study the topological susceptibility, chi, in two flavour lattice QCD. We find clear evidence for the expected suppression of chi at small quark mass. The estimate of the pion decay constant, f_pi = 105 +/-5 +18/-10 MeV, is consistent with the experimental value of approximately 93 MeV. We compare chi to the large-N_c prediction and find consistency over a large range of quark masses.
The chiral susceptibility is given by the scalar vacuum polarisation at zero total momentum. This follows directly from the expression for the vacuum quark condensate so long as a nonperturbative symmetry preserving truncation scheme is employed. For QCD in-vacuum the susceptibility can rigorously be defined via a Pauli-Villars regularisation procedure. Owing to the scalar Ward identity, irrespective of the form or Ansatz for the kernel of the gap equation, the consistent scalar vertex at zero total momentum can automatically be obtained and hence the consistent susceptibility. This enables ca…
We study the splitting in the screening mass of pions and the $η$-meson across the chiral crossover. This splitting is determined by the 't Hooft determinant. We use results for the renormalisation group scale dependence of the 't Hooft determinant obtained within the functional renomalisation group in quenched QCD with two flavours. The scale dependence of the 't Hooft determinant is mapped to its temperature dependence with the help of a Polyakov-quark-meson model. As a result we obtain the temperature dependence of the splitting in the screening mass of pions and the $η$-meson.
A chiral Lagrangian with $ SU(3) $ breaking and higher resonances is proposed. In this model, the $ SU(3) $ breaking structure in vector-pseudoscalar sector is realized with the decay constants of pseudoscalar mesons and the masses of vector mesons used as inputs. We examine whether the resulting $ SU(3) $ breaking effect in the charge radii of pseudoscalar mesons is consistent with the experimental facts.
We determine the chiral phase structure of $2+1$-flavour QCD in dependence of temperature and the light flavour quark mass with Dyson-Schwinger equations. Specifically, we compute the renormalised chiral condensate and its susceptibility. The latter is used to determine the (pseudo)critical temperature for general light current quark masses. In the chiral limit we obtain a critical temperature of about 141\,MeV. This result is in quantitative agreement with recent functional renormalisation group results in QCD, and is compatible with the respective lattice results. We also compute the order p…
Multi-flavour (N_f>=3) Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) may exhibit instabilities due to vacuum fluctuations of sea q-bar q pairs. Keeping the fluctuations small would require a very precise fine-tuning of the low-energy constants L_4 and L_6 to L_4[crit](M_rho) = - 0.51 * 10^(-3), and L_6[crit](M_rho) = - 0.26 * 10^(-3). A small deviation from these critical values -- like the one suggested by the phenomenology of OZI-rule violation in the scalar channel -- is amplified by huge numerical factors inducing large effects of vacuum fluctuations. This would lead in particular to a strong N_f-depe…
We explore the nature of the bulk transition observed at strong coupling in the SU(3) gauge theory with Nf=12 fermions in the fundamental representation. The transition separates a weak coupling chirally symmetric phase from a strong coupling chirally broken phase and is compatible with the scenario where conformality is restored by increasing the flavour content of a non abelian gauge theory. We explore the intriguing possibility that the observed bulk transition is associated with the occurrence of an ultraviolet fixed point (UVFP) at strong coupling, where a new theory emerges in the contin…
We present numerical results for the 2-flavour Schwinger model with dynamical chiral lattice fermions. We insert an approximately chiral hypercube Dirac operator into the overlap formula to construct the overlap hypercube operator. This is an exact solution to the Ginsparg-Wilson relation, with an excellent level of locality and scaling. Due to its similarity with the hypercubic kernel, a low polynomial in this kernel provides a numerically efficient Hybrid Monte Carlo force. We measure the microscopic Dirac spectrum and discuss the corresponding scale-invariant parameter, which takes a surpri…
In this work we compute the axion mass and, from this (exploiting a well-known relation), we also derive an expression for the QCD topological susceptibility in the finite-temperature case, both below and above the chiral phase transition at $T_c$, making use of a chiral effective Lagrangian model which includes the axion, the scalar and pseudoscalar mesons and implements the $U(1)$ axial anomaly of the fundamental theory. We also provide a numerical estimate of the topological susceptibility at $T=0$ (in the physical case of three light quark flavors) and discuss the question of the temperatu…
We present positivity bounds, derived from the principles of analyticity, unitarity and crossing symmetry, that constrain the low-energy constants of chiral perturbation theory. Bounds are produced for 2, 3 or more flavours in meson-meson scattering with equal meson masses, up to and including next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO), using the second and higher derivatives of the amplitude. We enhance the bounds by using the most general isospin combinations posible (or higher-flavour counterparts thereof) and by analytically integrating the low-energy range of the discontinuities. In addition, w…
The nature of the QCD chiral phase transition in the limit of vanishing quark masses has remained elusive for a long time, since it cannot be simulated directly on the lattice and is strongly cutoff-dependent. We report on a comprehensive ongoing study using unimproved staggered fermions with $N_\text{f}\in[2,8]$ mass-degenerate flavours on $N_τ\in\{4,6,8\}$ lattices, in which we locate the chiral critical surface separating regions with first-order transitions from crossover regions in the bare parameter space of the lattice theory. Employing the fact that it terminates in a tricritical line,…
We investigate the flavour decomposition of the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon, based on the chiral quark-soliton model ($χ$QSM) with symmetry-conserving quantisation. We consider the rotational $1/N_c$ and linear strange-quark mass ($m_s$) corrections. We discuss the results of the flavour-decomposed electromagnetic form factors in comparison with the recent experimental data. In order to see the effects of the strange quark, we compare the SU(3) results with those of SU(2). We finally discuss the transverse charge densities for both unpolarised and polarised nucleons. The transv…
Chiral symmetry breaking may exhibit significantly different patterns in two chiral limits: N_f=2 massless flavours (m_u=m_d=0, m_s physical) and N_f=3 massless flavours (m_u=m_d=0=m_s=0). Such a difference may arise due to vacuum fluctuations of s-bar{s} pairs related to the violation of the Zweig rule in the scalar sector, and could yield a numerical competition between contributions counted as leading order and next-to-leading in the chiral expansions of observables. We recall and extend Resummed Chiral Perturbation Theory (ReChPT), a framework that we introduced previously to deal with suc…
We study the thermal transition of QCD with two degenerate light flavours by lattice simulations using $\mathcal{O}(a)$-improved Wilson quarks. Particular emphasis lies on the pattern of chiral symmetry restoration, which we probe via the static screening correlators. On $32^3$ volumes we observe that the screening masses in transverse iso-vector vector and axial-vector channels become degenerate at the transition temperature. The splitting between the screening masses in iso-vector scalar and pseudoscalar channels is strongly reduced compared to the splitting at zero temperature and is actual…
The topological susceptibility of QCD vacuum is studied in the framework of a covariant chiral quark model with non-local quark-quark interaction. The relation of the first moment of topological susceptibility χ'(0) and the 'spin crisis' problem is briefly discussed. It is shown, in particular, that one always gets the inequality χ'(0)>χ'_{OZI}.
We compute the magnetic susceptibility of the quark condensate and the polarization of quarks at zero temperature and in a uniform magnetic background. Our theoretical framework consists of two chiral models that allow to treat self-consistently the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry: the linear $σ-$model coupled to quarks, dubbed quark-meson model, and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. We also perform analytic estimates of the same quantities within the renormalized quark-meson model, both in the regimes of weak and strong fields. Our numerical results are in agreement with the recent litera…
We study the solutions of the gap equation, the thermodynamic potential and the chiral susceptibility in and beyond the chiral limit at finite chemical potential in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. We give an explicit relation between the chiral susceptibility and the thermodynamic potential in the NJL model. We find that the chiral susceptibility is a quantity being able to represent the furcation of the solutions of the gap equation and the concavo-convexity of the thermodynamic potential in NJL model. It indicates that the chiral susceptibility can identify the stable state and the poss…
Within the chiral constituent quark model of Glozman and Riska, we discuss the stability of heavy pentaquarks, i.e. hadrons containing four light quarks and a heavy antiquark. The spin-dependent part of the Hamiltonian is dominated by the short-range part of the Goldstone-boson-exchange interaction. We find that these systems are not bound, having an energy above the lowest dissociation threshold into a baryon and a meson.
We discuss the baryon-number susceptibility $χ_B$ and related topics which include the density fluctuations around the critical point of the chiral transition at finite temperature $T$ and baryon density $ρ_B$. Phenomenological implications of the density fluctuations near the first-order chiral transition at finite density are also discussed.
For one flavour, we observe that standard chiral random matrix models are schematic variants of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) models whether in vacuum or matter. The ensuing thermodynamics is that of constituent quarks, with mean-field universality in general. For two and three flavours non-standard chiral random matrix models with $U_A(1)$ breaking are suggested. For three flavours the transition is reminiscent of the isotropic-nematic transition in liquid crystals.
The vortical susceptibility of chiral condensate is derived in two ways. First we obtain this using the spectrum of the Dirac operator in a metric of a curved space-time, which corresponds to rotation. Second we come to the expression for the susceptibility via the holographic approach to QCD.
We derive a model-independent integral formula for chiral susceptibility and attempt to present a continuum model study of it within the framework of Dyson-Schwinger Equations. An appropriate regularization is implemented to remove the temperature-independent quadratic divergence inherent in this quantity. While it demonstrates a second-order phase transition characteristic in the chiral limit, the result obtained supports a crossover at physical current quark masses, which is in good agreement with recent lattice studies.
The chiral susceptibility, or the first derivative of the chiral condensate with respect to the quark mass, is often used as a probe for the QCD phase transition since the chiral condensate is an order parameter of $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R$ symmetry breaking. However, the chiral condensate also breaks the axial $U(1)$ symmetry, which is usually not paid attention to as it is already broken by anomaly and apparently gives little impact on the transition. We investigate the susceptibilities in the scalar and pseudoscalar channels in order to quantify how much the axial $U(1)$ breaking contributes…
After an introduction to chiral perturbation theory, the effective field theory of the standard model at low energies, a brief overview is given of applications to light-flavour physics. Three topics in the strong interactions of pseudoscalar mesons are then discussed in some detail: loops and chiral logs, pion-pion scattering and isospin violation.
We investigate the possible restoration of chiral and axial symmetries across the phase transition at finite temperature and chemical potential, by analyzing the behavior of several physics quantities, such as the quark condensates and the topological susceptibility, the respective derivatives in order to chemical potential, and the masses of meson chiral partners. We discuss whether only chiral symmetry or both chiral and axial symmetries are restored and what is the role of the strange quark. The results are compared with recent lattice results.
We estimate here chiral susceptibility at finite temperature within the framework of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model (NJL) using the Wigner function approach. We also estimate it in the presence of chiral chemical potential ($μ_5$) as well as a non vanishing magnetic field ($B$). We use medium separation regularization scheme (MSS) to calculate the chiral condensate and corresponding susceptibility. It is observed that for a fixed value of chiral chemical potential ($μ_5$), transition temperature increases with the magnetic field. While for the fixed value of the magnetic field, transition temper…
Since the strange quark has a light mass of order Lambda_QCD, fluctuations of sea s-s bar pairs may play a special role in the low-energy dynamics of QCD by inducing significantly different patterns of chiral symmetry breaking in the chiral limits N_f=2 (m_u=m_d=0, m_s physical) and N_f=3 (m_u=m_d=m_s=0). This effect of vacuum fluctuations of s-s bar pairs is related to the violation of the Zweig rule in the scalar sector, described through the two O(p^4) low-energy constants L_4 and L_6 of the three-flavour strong chiral lagrangian. In the case of significant vacuum fluctuations, three-flavou…
We study properties of the thermal transition in QCD, using anisotropic, fixed-scale lattice simulations with $N_f = 2+1$ flavours of Wilson fermion. Observables are compared for two values of the pion mass, focusing on chiral properties. Results are presented for the Polyakov loop, various susceptibilities, the chiral condensate and its susceptibility, and the onset of parity doubling in the light and strange baryonic sector.
We present a study of the topological susceptibility $χ$ on the lattice for full QCD with 2 and 4 flavours of staggered fermions at zero and finite temperature T. We find that $χ$ presents a sharp drop across the deconfinement transition. We also study the dependence of $χ$ on the quark mass at T=0: we have no conclusive evidence for the expected chiral behaviour.
We argue that light quark loops produce a paramagnetic suppression of infrared-sensitive order parameters such as <qq>, as the number N_f of light fermions increases. The possibly strong dependence of <qq> on N_f is related to the observed Zweig rule violation in the scalar channel. Presuming the existence of a chiral phase transition for not too large N_f, we discuss the phenomenological possibilities of separately determining the two-flavour and three-flavour condensates and the quark mass ratio r=2m_s/(m_u+m_d). The issue is closely related to the interpretation of new forthcoming precise p…
We construct the effective chiral Lagrangian for chiral perturbation theory in the mesonic odd-intrinsic-parity sector at order $p^6$. The Lagrangian contains 24 in principle measurable terms and no contact terms for the general case of $N_f$ light flavours, 23 terms for three and 5 for two flavours. In the two flavour case we need a total of 13 terms if an external singlet vector field is included. We discuss and implement the methods used to reduce to a minimal set. The infinite parts needed for renormalization are calculated and presented as well.
We investigate the QCD magnetic susceptibility chi_q for flavor SU(2) at finite temperature (T) beyond the chiral limit, using the liquid instanton model, defined in Euclidean space and modified by the T-dependent caloron solution. The background electromagnetic fields are induced to the QCD vacuum, employing the Schwinger method. We first compute the scalar (chiral) and tensor condensates as functions of T as well the current-quark mass m, signaling the correct universal chiral restoration patterns. It turns out that chi_q, given by the ratio of the two condensates, is a smoothly decreasing f…