Dynamics of the Polyakov loops in QCD
A non-perturbative method of Field Correlators is applied to calculate the Polyakov loop dependence on temperature, $L(T)$, in the 2+1 flavor QCD with small quark masses, so the only relevant scale is the color-electric string tension $σ(T)$. Polyakov loop in the temperature range 100 MeV $\lesssim T\lesssim$ 400 MeV is expressed via the heavy-light meson mass that decreases with $T$ as $\sqrt{σ(T)}$. The latter is deduced from a gradually vanishing chiral condensate. The resulting $L(T)$ is in good agreement with recent lattice data.
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