Phase transition of strongly interacting matter with a chemical potential dependent Polyakov loop potential

Understand

We construct a hadron-quark two-phase model based on the Walecka-quantum hadrodynamics and the improved Polyakov-Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with an explicit chemical potential dependence of Polyakov-loop potential ($\mu$PNJL model).

• With respect to the original PNJL model, the confined-deconfined phase transition is largely affected at low temperature and large chemical potential.
• Using the two-phase model, we investigate the equilibrium transition between hadronic and quark matter at finite chemical potentials and temperatures.
• The numerical results show that the transition boundaries from nuclear to quark matter move towards smaller chemical potential (lower density) when the $\mu$-dependent Polyakov loop potential is taken.