U_A(1) Anomaly at high temperature: the scalar-pseudoscalar splitting in QCD

Abstract

We estimate the splitting between the spatial correlation lengths in the scalar and pseudoscalar channels in QCD at high temperature. The splitting is due to the contribution of the instanton/anti-instanton chains in the thermal ensemble, even though instanton contributions to thermodynamic quantities are suppressed. The splitting vanishes at asymptotically high temperatures as $ΔM/M\propto (Λ_{QCD}/T)^b$, where $b$ is the beta function coefficient.

5 pp