Heavy quark–antiquark free energy and the renormalized Polyakov loop

We calculate the colour averaged and colour singlet free energies of static quark–antiquark sources placed in a thermal gluonic heat bath. We discuss the renormalization of these free energies using the short distance properties of the zero temperature heavy quark potential. This leads to the definition of the renormalized Polyakov loop as an order parameter for the deconfinement phase transition of the SU(3) gauge theory which is well behaved in the continuum limit.