The pressure of QCD at finite temperatures and chemical potentials

Abstract

The perturbative expansion of the pressure of hot QCD is computed here to order g^6ln(g) in the presence of finite quark chemical potentials. In this process all two- and three-loop one-particle irreducible vacuum diagrams of the theory are evaluated at arbitrary T and mu, and these results are then used to analytically verify the outcome of an old order g^4 calculation of Freedman and McLerran for the zero-temperature pressure. The results for the pressure and the different quark number susceptibilities at high T are compared with recent lattice simulations showing excellent agreement especially for the chemical potential dependent part of the pressure.

Comments: 35 pages, 6 figures; text revised, one figure replaced