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Heavy quark potential at finite imaginary chemical potential

We investigate chemical-potential ($μ$) dependence of the static-quark free energies in both the real and imaginary $μ$ regions, using the clover-improved two-flavor Wilson fermion action and the renormalization-group improved Iwasaki gauge action. Static-quark potentials are evaluated from Polyakov-loop correlators in the deconfinement phase and the imaginary $μ=iμ_{\rm I}$ region and extrapolated to the real $μ$ region with analytic continuation. As the analytic continuation, the potential calculated at imaginary $μ=iμ_{\rm I}$ is expanded into a Taylor-expansion series of $iμ_{\rm I}/T$ up to 4th order and the pure imaginary variable $iμ_{\rm I}/T$ is replaced by the real one $μ_{\rm R}/T$. At real $μ$, the 4th-order term weakens $μ$ dependence of the potential sizably. Also, the color-Debye screening mass is extracted from the color-singlet potential at imaginary $μ$, and the mass is extrapolated to real $μ$ by analytic continuation. The screening mass thus obtained has stronger $μ$ dependence than the prediction of the leading-order thermal perturbation theory at both real and imaginary $μ$.