Related papers: QCD confinement and chiral crossovers, two critica…
We discuss the critical behaviour of strongly interacting matter close to the QCD phase transition. Emphasis is put on a presentation of results from lattice calculations that illustrate deconfining as well as chiral symmetry restoring…
We review recent results on the phase structure of QCD and bulk QCD thermodynamics. In particular we discuss how universal critical scaling related to spontaneous breaking of the chiral symmetry manifests itself in recent lattice QCD…
The chiral critical surface is a surface of second order phase transitions bounding the region of first order chiral phase transitions for small quark masses in the {m_{u,d}, m_s,\mu} parameter space. The potential critical endpoint of the…
The curvature which characterizes the QCD phase transition at finite temperature and small values of the chemical potential is accessible to lattice simulations. The results for this quantity which have been obtained by several different…
In this article, for the first time, we explore the scenario that the dark-QCD sector has a large chemical potential $\mu$ (on the order of magnitude of temperature) of dark quarks. It leads to a complex-valued Polyakov loop and tilts the…
We summarize recent results for the phase structure of QCD at finite temperature and light-quark chemical potential for N_f=2+1 and N_f=2+1+1 dynamical quark flavors. We discuss order parameters for the chiral and deconfinement transitions…
We address the old difficulty in accommodating the scalar quark-antiquark confining potential together with chiral symmetry breaking. We develop a quark confining potential inspired in the QCD scalar flux tube. The coupling to quarks…
We discuss the phase structure and thermodynamics of QCD by means of dynamical chiral effective models. Quark and meson fluctuations are included via the functional renormalization group. We study the influence of confinement in addition to…
A new phase of dense QCD proposed in the limit of large number of colors, Quarkyonic Phase, is discussed in chiral approaches. The interplay between chiral symmetry breaking and confinement together with the $N_c$ dependence of the phase…
We investigate the effect of screening of the four-quarks contact interactions by the ring diagram at finite temperature and density in an effective chiral model inspired by QCD in the Coulomb gauge. As a consequence, a medium-dependent…
We present results for the chiral and deconfinement transition of two flavor QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential. To this end we study the quark condensate and its dual, the dressed Polyakov loop, with functional methods using…
Quenched QCD at zero baryonic chemical potential undergoes a first-order deconfinement phase transition at a critical temperature $T_c$, which is related to the spontaneous breaking of the global center symmetry. Including heavy, dynamical…
We investigate the phase structures of theories which differ from QCD only in the gauge group and can be simulated on the lattice at non-vanishing chemical potential $\mu$. These theories can thus serve as testing ground for functional…
The critical endpoint of the QCD phase diagram is usually expected to belong to the chiral critical surface, i.e. the surface of second order transitions bounding the region of first order chiral phase transitions for small quark masses in…
The phase diagram of two-color QCD with a chiral chemical potential is studied on the lattice. The focus is on the confinement/deconfinement phase transition and the breaking/restoration of chiral symmetry. The simulations are carried out…
We study the effect of a partially thermalized scenario for chiral symmetry restoration at finite temperature and quark chemical potential, and in particular for the position of the critical end point in an effective description of the QCD…
The structure of the phase diagram for strong interactions becomes richer in the presence of a magnetic background, which enters as a new control parameter for the thermodynamics. Motivated by the relevance of this physical setting for…
The chiral phase transition in QCD at finite chemical potential and temperature can be characterized for small chemical potential by its curvature and the transition temperature. The curvature is accessible to QCD lattice simulations, which…
The global center symmetry of quenched QCD at zero baryonic chemical potential is broken spontaneously at a critical temperature $T_c$ leading to a first-order phase transition. Including heavy dynamical quarks breaks the center symmetry…
The present knowledge of the QCD phase diagram based on simulations of lattice QCD is summarised. The main questions are whether there is a critical point in the QCD phase diagram and whether it is related to a chiral phase transition. It…