https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-6113-5
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Finite size effects in strongly interacting matter at zero chemical potential from Polyakov loop Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model in the light of lattice data
1
CONICET, Godoy Cruz 2290, C1425FQB, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2
Departamento de Física, Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica, Av. Libertador 8250, 1429, Buenos Aires, Argentina
3
Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas, Universidade Federal do ABC, Avenida dos Estados 5001-Bangú, Santo André, SP, CEP 09210-580, Brazil
* e-mail: german.lugones@ufabc.edu.br
Received:
20
April
2018
Accepted:
27
July
2018
Published online:
10
August
2018
We study finite volume effects within the Polyakov loop Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model for two light and one heavy quarks at vanishing baryon chemical potential and finite temperatures. We include three different Polyakov loop potentials and ensure that the predictions of our effective model in bulk are compatible with lattice QCD results. Finite size effects are taken into account by means of the Multiple Reflection Expansion formalism. We analyze several thermodynamic quantities including the interaction measure, the speed of sound, the surface tension, and the curvature energy and find that they are sensitive to finite volume effects, specially for systems with radii below 
and temperatures around the crossover one. For all sizes, the system undergoes a smooth crossover. The chiral critical temperature decreases by around 
and the deconfinement temperature by less than a 
when the radius goes from infinity to 3 fm. Thus, as the drop’s size decreases, both temperatures become closer. The surface tension is dominated by the contribution of strange quarks and the curvature energy by u and d quarks. At large temperatures both quantities grow proportionally to 
but saturate to a constant value at low T.
© The Author(s), 2018
