Polyakov loop potential at finite density

The Polyakov loop potential serves to distinguish between the confined hadronic and the deconfined quark-gluon plasma phases of QCD. For N-f = 2+ 1 quark flavors with physical masses we determine the Polyakov loop potential at finite temperature and density and extract the location of the deconfinement transition. We find a crossover at small values of the chemical potential running into a critical end-point at mu/T > 1. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.