Color screening in (2+1)-flavor QCD

We study correlation functions of spatially separated static quark-antiquark pairs in (2+1)-flavor QCD in order to investigate onset and nature of color screening at high temperatures. We perform lattice calculations in a wide temperature range, $140\le T\le 5814\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}$, using the highly improved staggered quark action and several lattice spacings to control discretization effects. By comparing at high temperatures our lattice results to weak-coupling calculations as well as to the zero temperature result for the energy of a static quark-antiquark pair, we observe that color screening sets in at $rT \approx 0.3$\mathrm{.}Furthermore,wealsoobservethatintherange$0.3 \lesssim r T \lesssim 0.6$ weak-coupling calculations in the framework of suitable effective field theories provide an adequate picture of color screening.