We analyze the consequences of the inclusion of the gluonic Polyakov loop in chiral quark models at low temperature in the light of chiral perturbation theory. Specifically, the low-energy effective chiral Lagrangian from two such quark models is computed. The tree level vacuum energy density, quark condensate, pion decay constant, and Gasser-Leutwyler coefficients are found to acquire a temperature dependence. This dependence is, however, exponentially small for temperatures below the mass gap in the full unquenched calculation. The introduction of the Polyakov loop and its quantum fluctuations is essential to achieve this result and also the correct large $N_c$ counting for the thermal corrections. We find that new coefficients are introduced at $\mathcal{O}(p^4)$ to account for the Lorentz breaking at finite temperature. As a byproduct, we obtain the effective Lagrangian which describes the coupling of the Polyakov loop to the Goldstone bosons.

• Received 31 July 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.74.114014