Heavy two- and three-quark free energies at finite $T$

Abstract

We investigate the behaviour of heavy $QQ$- and $QQQ$-free energies in SU(3) pure gauge theory at finite temperature. After stating some general properties of the free energies, we discuss the $QQ$-antitriplet and -sextet channels as well as free energies in different $QQQ$-channels. We perform a detailed finite volume scaling analysis of $QQ$-free energies below and above $T_c$. Moreover, we also discuss the relation of the $QQ$-antitriplet to the $Q\bar Q$-singlet free energies. A comparison of the effective running coupling indicates that the $r$-dependence of the free energies differs by a factor of two in agreement with the different Casimir factors. We observe that the baryonic free energies can be decomposed into a sum of two particle interactions.