Particle states of lattice QCD

Abstract

Abstract We determine the degeneracy factor and the average particle mass of particles that produce the lattice QCD pressure and specific entropy at zero baryon chemical potential. The number of states of the gluons and the quarks are found to converge above $$T=230$$ T = 230 MeV to almost constant values, close to the number of states of an ideal quark–gluon phase, while their assigned masses retain high values. The number of states and the average mass of a system containing quarks in interaction with gluons are found to decrease steeply with increase of temperature between $$T \sim 150$$ T ∼ 150 and 160 MeV, a region contained within the region of the chiral transition. The minimum value of the number of states within this temperature interval indicates that the states are of hadronic nature.