Chiral symmetry restoration and properties of Goldstone bosons at finite temperature

Abstract: We study chiral symmetry restoration by analyzing thermal properties of QCD's (pseudo-)Goldstone bosons, especially the pion. The meson properties are obtained from the spectral densities of mesonic imaginary-time correlation functions. To obtain the correlation functions, we solve the Dyson-Schwinger equations and the inhomogeneous Bethe-Salpeter equations in the leading symmetry-preserving rainbow-ladder approximation. In the chiral limit, the pion and its partner sigma degenerate at the critical temperature $T_c$. At $T \gtrsim T_c$, it is found that the pion rapidly dissociates, which signals deconfinement phase transition. Beyond the chiral limit, the pion dissociation temperature can be used to define the pseudo-critical temperature of chiral phase crossover, which is consistent with that obtained by the maximum point of the chiral susceptibility. The parallel analysis for kaon and pseudoscalar $s\bar{s}$ suggests that heavy mesons may survive above $T_c$.