Related papers: The Polyakov loop and the hadron resonance gas mod…
We discuss the quenched limit of lattice QCD at non-zero baryon number density. We find evidence for a mixed phase that becomes broader with increasing baryon number. Although the action is explicitly Z(3) symmetric the Polyakov loop…
Thermal shifts and fluctuations at finite temperature below the deconfinement crossover of QCD from hadronic matter to the Quark-Gluon Plasma provide a viable way to look for exotic and missing states with given quantum numbers in the…
We study the thermodynamics and phase diagrams of two-flavor quantum chromodynamics using the Polyakov-loop extended quark-meson (PQM) model and the Pisarski-Skokov chiral matrix ($\chi M$) model. At temperatures up to $T\approx2T_c$ and…
The Polyakov-quark-meson (PQM) model, which combines chiral as well as deconfinement aspects of strongly interacting matter is introduced for three light quark flavors. An analysis of the chiral and deconfinement phase transition of the…
We study the free energy of a static quark in QCD with 2+1 flavors in a wide temperature region, 116 MeV $< T < $ 5814 MeV, using the highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) action. We analyze the transition region in detail, obtain the…
We compare two order parameters for the deconfinement transition, induced by thermal and density effects, commonly used in the literature, namely the thermal and density evolution of the continuum threshold $s_{0}$, within the frame of the…
Two phenomenological models describing an SU(N) quark-gluon plasma are presented. The first is obtained from high temperature expansions of the free energy of a massive gluon, while the second is derived by demanding color neutrality over a…
We consider the Polyakov Nambu Jona Lasinio model with three massless quarks at high density and moderate temperature in the superconductive color flavor locking phase. We compute the critical temperature $T_c$ as a function of the baryonic…
Based on a generalized Beth-Uhlenbeck approach to thermodynamics of QCD motivated by cluster decomposition we present a unified equation of state of hot strongly interacting matter and analyze its properties in a wide range of temperatures.…
The Polyakov loop expectation value $\langle P\rangle$ is an order parameter of the deconfinement transition in the heavy quark mass regime, whereas its sensitivity to the deconfinement of light, dynamical quarks is not apparent. From the…
For the exploration of the phase diagram of QCD, effective Polyakov loop theories derived from lattice QCD provide a valuable tool in the heavy quark mass regime. Using mean field approximations these theories are evaluated in the high and…
At finite temperature, chiral quark models do not incorporate large gauge invariance which implies genuinely non-perturbative finite temperature gluonic degrees of freedom. Motivated by this observation, we describe how the coupling of the…
We consider QCD near but above critical temperature Tc. The pressure, susceptibilities and the renormalized Polyakov loop -- which is an order parameter for the deconfining phase transition -- dramatically change up to temperatures a few…
We study the compatibility of effective mean-field models of the Polyakov loop for the deconfined phase of SU(N) pure gauge theories with lattice data obtained for the case of SU(2), in the temperature range T_c - 4.8 T_c.
The strongly-coupled phase of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is studied here by resorting to a $T$-matrix formulation in which the medium is seen as a non-ideal gas of quasiparticles (quarks, antiquarks and gluons) interacting…
We consider the intersection of N different interfaces interpolating between different $Z_N$ vacua of an SU(N) gauge theory using the Polyakov loop order parameter. Topological arguments show that at such a string-like junction, the order…
We analyze the equation of state of 2+1 flavor lattice QCD at zero baryon density by constructing the simple quark-hadron hybrid model that has both quark and hadron components simultaneously. We calculate hadron and quark contribution…
We study the temperature dependence of the strange and charm quark chemical potentials in the phase diagram of nuclear matter, within a modified and generalized hadron gas model, in order to consider phase transitions and to describe…
By using a simple relativistic model, we compute the glueball and gluelump spectra and relate these quantities, respectively, to the trace anomaly and Polyakov loop in the adjoint representation of gluodynamics. This spectroscopic…
I report on recent results obtained within the Hamiltonian approach to QCD in Coulomb gauge. Furthermore this approach is compared to recent lattice data, which were obtained by an alternative gauge fixing method and which show an improved…