Density, short-range order and the quark-gluon plasma
Abstract
We study the thermal part of the energy density spatial correlator in the quark-gluon plasma. We describe its qualitative form at high temperatures. We then calculate it out to distances approx. 1.5/T in SU(3) gauge theory lattice simulations for the range of temperatures 0.9<= T/Tc<= 2.2. The vacuum-subtracted correlator exhibits non-monotonic behavior, and is almost conformal by 2Tc. Its broad maximum at r approx. 0.6/T suggests a dense medium with only weak short-range order, similar to a non-relativistic fluid near the liquid-gas phase transition, where eta/s is minimal.
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