PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

In this proceedings I summarize results of QCD trace anomaly from recent three-loop hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory (HTLpt) calculations. I focus on the trace anomaly scaled by T (2) for pure-glue and N (f) = 3 QCD. The comparison to available lattice data suggests that for pure-glue QCD agreement between HTLpt results and lattice data for the trace anomaly begins at temperatures above 8 T (c) while when including quarks (N (f) = 3) agreement begins already at temperatures above 2 T (c) . The results in both cases indicate that at very high temperatures the T (2)-scaled trace anomaly increases with temperature in accordance with the predictions of HTLpt.