Entropy in the quark–hadron transition

We study, in the PNJL model, how the entropy of interacting quarks reflects the change in the effective degrees of freedom as the temperature increases through the quark–hadron phase transition. With inclusion of mesonic correlations, the effective degrees of freedom change from those of pi and sigma mesons at low temperatures to those of free quarks at high temperatures, with a resultant second order phase deconfinement transition in the chiral limit.