Chiral quark model with infrared cut-off for the description of meson properties in hot matter

A simple chiral quark model of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) type with a qua rk confinement mechanism is constructed for the description of the light-me son sector of QCD at finite temperature. Unphysical quark production thresh olds in the NJL model are excluded by an infrared cut-off in the momentum i ntegration within quark loop diagrams. This chiral quark model satisfies th e low-energy theorems. Using the vacuum masses and decay widths of pi- and rho -mesons for fixing the model parameters, the properties of the sigma -m eson are derived. Within the Matsubara formalism, the model is systematical ly extended to finite temperatures where chiral symmetry restoration due to a dropping constituent quark mass entails a vanishing of the infrared cut- off (deconfinement) at the pion Mott temperature T-c = 186 MeV. Besides the pion mass and weak decay constant, the masses, coupling constants and deca y widths of sigma- and rho -mesons in hot matter axe investigated. The quar k-antiquark decay channel of the light mesons is opened for T > T-c only an d becomes particularly strong for the rho -meson. The two-pion decay channe l below T-c, has almost constant width for the rho -meson up to T-c, but fo r the sigma -meson it closes below T-c such that a scalar meson state with vanishing width is obtained as a precursor of the chiral/deconfinement tran sition.