Thermodynamics of the quark-gluon plasma in terms of quasiparticles and Polyakov line condensates

We study the quantum thermodynamics of a model of quark-gluon plasma of 2 + 1 flavors in terms of quasiparticles propagating in a condensate of Polyakov loops. The Polyakov loop is coupled to quasiparticles by means of a gaslike effective potential. This study is useful to identify the effective degrees of freedom propagating in the medium above the critical temperature. Our finding is that a dominant part of the phase transition dynamics is accounted for by the Polyakov loop, hence the thermodynamics can be described without the need for rapidly increasing quasiparticle masses as T -> T-c, at variance with respect to standard quasiparticle models.