Propagators and dimensional reduction of hot SU(2) gauge theory - art. no.036001

We investigate the large distance behavior of the electric and magnetic pro pagators of hot SU(2) gauge theory in different gauges using lattice simula tions of the full four-dimensional (4D) theory and the effective, dimension ally reduced, 3D theory. A comparison of the 3D and 4D propagators suggests that dimensional reduction works surprisingly well down to the temperature T=2T(c). Within statistical uncertainty the electric screening mass is fou nd to be gauge independent. The magnetic propagator, on the other hand, exh ibits a complicated gauge dependent structure at low momentum.