The Temperature Dependence of the SU(N) Gluon Condensate from Lattice Gauge Theory

An analysis of the temperature dependence of the leading contributions to the gluon condensate for SU(N) lattice gauge theory is presented using the data from recent Monte Carlo simulations. The gluon condensate is calculated directly from the new lattice calculations of the interaction measure. It is shown how these computations provide a simple picture for the melting of the condensate around the deconfinement temperature, and the fact that it is negative, and increases in magnitude, above Tc. We close with a discussion of the implications for full QCD of recent results from simulations including fermions.