Role of mesonic fluctuations in the Polyakov loop extended quark-meson model at imaginary chemical potential

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermodynamics and phase structure of the Polyakov loop-extended quark-meson model at imaginary chemical potential using the functional renormalization group, highlighting the effects of mesonic fluctuations beyond mean-field approximation.

Contribution

It introduces a FRG-based analysis of the PQM model at imaginary chemical potential, providing insights beyond mean-field results.

Findings

FRG results differ from mean-field predictions at imaginary chemical potential.

Phase diagram and order parameters are computed with mesonic fluctuations included.

The approach enhances understanding of QCD-like thermodynamics at finite temperature and chemical potential.

Abstract

We explore the thermodynamics and phase structure of the Polyakov loop-extended two flavor chiral quark--meson (PQM) model beyond the mean-field approximation at imaginary chemical potential. Our approach is based on the functional renormalization group (FRG) method. At finite temperature and imaginary chemical potential, we solve the renormalization group flow equation for a scale-dependent thermodynamic potential in the presence of the gluonic background field. We determine behavior of order parameters of the PQM model in the FRG approach and compute the phase diagram. We compare our FRG results with that obtained in the mean-field approximation at imaginary chemical potential.