Two-loop perturbative corrections to the thermal effective potential in gluodynamics

Abstract

The thermodynamics of pure glue theories can be described in terms of an effective action for the Polyakov loop. This effective action is of the Landau-Ginzburg type and its variables are the angles parametrizing the loop. In this paper we compute perturbative corrections to this action. Remarkably, two-loop corrections turn out to be proportional to the one-loop action, independent of the eigenvalues of the loop. By a straightforward generalization of the 't Hooft coupling this surprisingly simple result holds for any of the classical and exceptional groups.