Nonlocal SU(3) chiral quark models at finite temperature: the role of the Polyakov loop

TL;DR

This paper investigates how incorporating the Polyakov loop into nonlocal SU(3) chiral quark models affects the chiral phase transition, notably increasing the critical temperature to align better with lattice QCD results.

Contribution

It demonstrates that including the Polyakov loop significantly improves the model's predictions of the chiral transition temperature.

Findings

Polyakov loop enhances critical temperature predictions.

Better agreement with lattice QCD results.

Role of flavor mixing in the transition.

Abstract

We analyze the role played by the Polyakov loop in the description of the chiral phase transition within the framework of nonlocal SU(3) chiral models with flavor mixing. We show that its presence provides a substantial enhancement of the predicted critical temperature, bringing it to a better agreement with the most recent results of lattice calculations.