Correlation functions provide information on the properties of mesons in vacuum and of hot nuclear matter. In this Letter, we present a new method to derive a well-defined spectral representation for correlation functions. Combining this method with the quark gap equation and the inhomogeneous Bethe-Salpeter equation in the rainbow-ladder approximation, we calculate in-vacuum masses of light mesons and the electrical conductivity of the quark-gluon plasma. The analysis can be extended to other observables of strong-interaction systems.
Categories: nucl-th hep-lat hep-ph