The High-Temperature Phase of Yang-Mills Theory in Landau Gauge

The high-temperature phase of Yang-Mills theory in Landau gauge is studied using Dyson-Schwinger equations. The propagators of the gluon and the Faddeev-Popov ghosts are obtained at finite and infinite temperature, partially analytically. The results are in good agreement with lattice results. It is found that the infrared properties are only quantitatively affected by temperature. The confinement of at least soft gluons transverse to the heat bath is established, in accordance with the Kugo-Ojima and Gribov-Zwanziger confinement scenarios. This is confirmed by investigating the corresponding Schwinger functions. The hard modes are nearly inert even at temperatures of the order of the phase transition temperature. In addition, the thermodynamic potential is analyzed and solutions for 3d-Yang-Mills theory are obtained. It is conjectured that Yang-Mills theory likely undergoes a first order phase transition, which changes a strongly interacting system into another. The phases differ mainly by the properties of the chromoelectric sector.