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arXiv · 2511.00409

An effective field theory for thermal QCD with 2+1 flavours

Sourendu Gupta·Pritam Sen·Rishi Sharma
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Abstract

We write a long-distance effective field theory (EFT) for QCD at finite temperature just below the crossover temperature $T_c$. The low energy constants (LECs) of this EFT are obtained from lattice measurements of the screening mass of pions at two temperatures for $N_f=2+1$ using lattice results obtained at physical values of pion and Kaon masses, and $N_f=2$ where the lattice simulations were performed with a heavier pion mass. The EFT gives good predictions for other static pion properties for $N_f=2$, where lattice results are available. We show the corresponding predictions for $N_f=2+1$, where they are not yet measured. We demonstrate that EFT gives excellent predictions for the phase diagram in $N_f=2+1$. The predictions for the pressure are investigated, and predictions are also given for a Wick-rotated real-time quantity called the kinetic mass.

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Sourendu Gupta, Pritam Sen, Rishi Sharma. 2025-11-01. An effective field theory for thermal QCD with 2+1 flavours. https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.00409

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