PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

We present our latest results for the the complex valued static heavy-quarkpotential at finite temperature from lattice QCD. The real and imaginary partof the potential are obtained from the position and width of the lowest lyingpeak in the spectral function of the Wilson line correlator in Coulomb gauge.Spectral information is extracted from Euclidean time data using a novelBayesian approach different from the Maximum Entropy Method. In order toextract both the real and imaginary part, we generated anisotropic quenchedlattices $32^3\times N_\tau$ $(\beta=7.0,\xi=3.5)$ with $N_\tau=24,\ldots,96$,corresponding to $839{\rm MeV} \geq T\geq 210 {\rm MeV}$. For the case of arealistic QCD medium with light u, d and s quarks we use isotropic$48^3\times12$ ASQTAD lattices with $m_l=m_s/20$ provided by the HotQCDcollaboration, which span $286 {\rm MeV} \geq T\geq 148{\rm MeV}$. We find aclean transition from a confining to a Debye screened real part and observethat its values lie close to the color singlet free energies in Coulomb gauge.The imaginary part, estimated on quenched lattices, is found to be of the sameorder of magnitude as in hard-thermal loop (HTL) perturbation theory.