Strongly Coupled Quark-Gluon Plasma: Equation of State near Tc

TL;DR

This paper evaluates a quasiparticle model for the QCD equation of state near the critical temperature, comparing it with lattice QCD data and demonstrating its ability to handle imaginary and real chemical potentials.

Contribution

It introduces a refined quasiparticle model that accurately incorporates quark mass dependence and extends to complex chemical potentials, aligning well with lattice QCD results.

Findings

Model matches lattice data near Tc

Successfully describes imaginary chemical potential results

Can analytically continue to real chemical potential

Abstract

We test the quark mass dependence implemented in the quasiparticle dispersion relations of our quasiparticle model for the QCD equation of state by comparing with recently available lattice QCD data near $T_c$ employing almost physical quark masses. In addition, we emphasize the capability of our model to successfully describe lattice QCD results for imaginary chemical potential and to analytically continue the latter to real chemical potential.