The $a_1(1260)$ meson and chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinment at finite temperature QCD

We consider the light-quark axial-vector current correlator in the framework of thermal QCD sum rules to: (a) find a relation between chiral-symmetry restoration and deconfinement, and (b) determine the temperature behaviour of the $a_1(1260)$ width and coupling. Our results show that deconfinement takes place at a slightly lower temperature than chiral-symmetry restoration.This difference is not significant given the accuracy of the method. The behaviour of the $a_1(1260)$ parameters is consistent with quark-gluon deconfinement, since the width grows and the coupling decreases with increasing temperature.