ON THE THERMAL PHASE STRUCTURE OF QCD AT VANISHING CHEMICAL POTENTIALS

Abstract

The hypothesis is investigated, that the thermal structure of QCD phases at and near zero chemical potentials is determined by long range coherence, inducing the gauge boson pair condensate, and its thermal extension, representing a fundamental order parameter. A consistent model for thermal behavior including interactions is derived in which the condensate does not produce any latent heat as it vanishes at the critical temperature inducing a second-order phase transition with respect to energy density neglecting eventual numerically small critical exponents. Localization and delocalization of color fields are thus separated by a unique critical temperature.