Color singlet and adjoint free energy at finite temperature

Abstract

We study correlation functions of static quark-antiquark pairs in SU(2) gauge theory at finite temperature. By measuring Polyakov loop correlators and temporal Wilson loops with APE smearing of spatial links we are able to give consistent definitions of the singlet and adjoint free energies at short distances, where the notion of these free energies is meaningful. APE smearing procedure allows to achieve a high degree of overlap in the singlet channel and to reconstruct the adjoint part from the color averaged and singlet free energy.