Calculation of the Momentum Dependence of Hadronic Current Correlation Functions at Finite Temperature

Abstract

We have calculated spectral functions associated with hadronic current correlation functions for vector currents at finite temperature. We made use of a model with chiral symmetry, temperature-dependent coupling constants and temperature-dependent momentum cutoff parameters. Our model has two parameters which are used to fix the magnitude and position of the large peak seen in the spectral functions. In our earlier work, good fits were obtained for the spectral functions that were extracted from lattice data by means of the maximum entropy method (MEM). In the present work we extend our calculations and provide values for the three-momentum dependence of the vector correlation function at T=1.5T_c. These results are used to obtain the correlation function in coordinate space, which is usually parametrized in terms of a screening mass. Our results for the three-momentum dependence of the spectral functions are similar to those found in a recent lattice QCD calculation for charmonium [S. Datta, F. Karsch, P. Petreczky and I. Wetzorke, hep-lat/0312037]. For a limited range we find the exponential behavior in coordinate space that is usually obtained for the spectral function for T>T_c and which allows for the definition of a screening mass.