Speaker
Description
Understanding the thermodynamic behavior of strongly interacting matter in extreme environments, such as at high temperature, at large baryon densities or in the presence of intense magnetic fields, is one of the central goals of contemporary nuclear and high-energy physics. Effective models, such as the linear sigma model coupled to quarks (LSMq), offer valuable insight into the non-perturbative aspects of QCD under these conditions. Nevertheless, the predictive power of these models depends strongly on the treatment of quantum and thermal fluctuations.
In this talk, I will present a self-consistent framework that goes beyond the mean field approximation, providing a more realistic description of the thermodynamics of QCD matter. I will introduce the general methodology of these self-consistent approaches and illustrate their impact through selected applications, including the structure of the QCD phase transition in the presence of magnetic fields or finite baryon density. The overall aim is to show how self-consistent effective modeling can improve our understanding of the QCD phase diagram and support the interpretation of results from heavy-ion collisions and astrophysical observations.
