The static part of the heavy quark potential has been shown to be closely related to the spectrum of the rectangular Wilson loop. In particular the lowest lying positive frequency peak encodes the late time evolution of the two-body system, characterized by a complex potential. While initial studies assumed a perfect separation of early- and late-time physics, where a simple Lorentzian (Breit-Wigner) shape suffices to describe the spectral peak, we argue that scale decoupling in general is not complete. Thus early-time, i.e., nonpotential effects significantly modify the shape of the lowest peak. We derive on general grounds an improved peak distribution that reflects this fact. Application of the improved fit to nonperturbative lattice QCD spectra now yields a potential that is compatible with a transition to a deconfined screening plasma.

• Received 17 August 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.86.051503