An Extended Chiral Mean-Field Model with Medium-Modified Thermal Mesons for Hot and Dense Hadronic Matter

Abstract

In this conference proceeding we review an extension of the Chiral Mean Field (CMF) model that consistently incorporates interacting thermal mesons with self-consistent in-medium masses. In this approach, the in-medium masses of pseudoscalar and vector mesons are evaluated through the explicit chiral symmetry-breaking and vector-interaction terms in the Lagrangian respectively, before applying the mean-field approximation. These medium-modified meson properties introduce additional feedback into the CMF equations of motion, leading to a revised equation of state. The impact of this refinement is analyzed by comparing the hadronic model predictions with recent lattice QCD data and other hadronic descriptions, such as the hadron resonance gas model. The modified CMF framework, featuring an improved meson treatment (mCMF),demonstrates enhanced consistency with lattice-QCD results for thermodynamic observables across a broad range of temperatures and baryon chemical potentials.