Glueball mass spectrum at finite temperature revisited: Constant contribution in glueball correlators in the deconfinement phase

Abstract

We study the glueball properties at finite temperature from the temporal correlation in $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills theory using anisotropic lattice QCD. Although the existence of a constant contribution to the meson correlation function appearing in the deconfinement phase is known, its effect on the glueball correlation function at finite temperature has not been considered in previous studies. The present study reveals that the constant contribution to the glueball correlation function actually occurs in the three lowest-lying glueball states, corresponding to the $0^{++}$, $2^{++}$, and $0^{-+}$ glueballs, from near the critical temperature of the deconfinement phase transition $T_C$ to the high temperature side. If the existence of constant terms is taken into account in the standard pole-mass analysis, it is observed that the pole-mass of the glueball ground state remains unchanged below $T_c$ and then increases with temperature above $T_C$. The result indicates that the true temperature dependence of the glueball mass above $T_C$ is opposite to the results of the previous studies.