A recently proposed phenomenological model, which includes nonperturbative effects from dimension two gluon condensates, is applied to analyze the available lattice data for the heavy quark free energy in the deconfined phase of quenched QCD. For large $q\overline{q}$ separations, we recover previous results for the Polyakov loop, exhibiting unequivocal power corrections in the temperature. For the $q\overline{q}$ potential at finite temperature and finite separation, we find that a good overall description of the lattice data can be achieved once the condensate is properly accounted for. In addition, the model predicts a duality between the zero temperature potential as a function of the $q\overline{q}$ separation, on the one hand, and the quark self-energy as a function of the temperature, on the other, which turns out to be satisfied to a high degree by the lattice data.

• Received 6 February 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.75.105019