Mesons, baryons and the confinement/deconfinement transition
Abstract
We identify an observable that could operate as a probe of the quark versus hadron content of a bath of quarks and gluons at finite temperature and chemical potential. To this purpose, we relate the Polyakov and anti-Polyakov loops, which determine how energetically costly it is to bring an external static quark or antiquark probe into the thermal bath, to the ability of that medium to provide favorable conditions for the formation of meson-like or baryon-like configurations that would screen the probes.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
High-Energy Particle Collisions Research
Nuclear physics research studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Physics Letters B
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Volume
- 874
- Pages
- 140288–140288
- Publication date
- 20 February 2026
- Language
- EN