Approaches to equilibrium thermodynamics of QCD: Effective theories and resummed perturbation theory

by Aleksi Vuorinen (CERN)

Thursday 29 May 2008, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

1/1-025 (CERN)

Part I: discussion of recent papers/events

Part II: Talk by Aleksi Vuorinen

Abstract: I will describe recent advances in our understanding of the equilibrium thermodynamics of deconfined QCD matter at weak and moderate couplings using two different approaches. First, I will discuss purely perturbative methods, which due to asymptotic freedom are guaranteed to work at high temperatures, but are plagued by convergence issues and infrared problems near the deconfinement transition. Later, I will also discuss the building of dimensionally reduced effective theories, which are hoped to bridge the gap between asymptotia and the realm of lattice QCD at T ~ a few T_c.