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 baryon chemical potentials up to $\mu_B=400\ \rm{MeV}$, both models show reasonable agreement with the pressure, energy density, and interaction measure as calculated on the lattice... (read more)
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