Finite temperature Landau gauge lattice quark propagator

The quark propagator at finite temperature is investigated using quenched gauge configurations. The propagator form factors are investigated for temperatures above and below the gluon deconfinement temperature Tc and for the various Matsubara frequencies. Significant differences between the functional behaviour below and above Tc are observed both for the quark wave function and the running quark mass. The results for the running quark mass indicate a link between gluon dynamics, the mechanism for chiral symmetry breaking and the deconfinement mechanism. For temperatures above Tc and for low momenta, our results support also a description of quarks as free quasiparticles.