Polyakov loop and gluon quasiparticles: A self-consistent approach to Yang-Mills thermodynamics

We present a quasiparticle model for the pure gauge sector of QCD, in which transverse quasigluons propagate in a Polyakov loop background field. By incorporating thermodynamic self-consistency in the approach, we show that our Polyakov loop extended quasiparticle model allows an accurate description of recent lattice results for all the thermodynamic quantities, including the Polyakov loop expectation value, in the deconfined phase. The related quasigluon mass exhibits a distinct temperature dependence, which is connected with the non-perturbative behavior seen in the scaled interaction measure of the pure gauge theory. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.