The QCD phase diagram at zero chemical potential and finite temperature subject to an external magnetic field is studied within the three-flavor Nambu\char21{}Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model and the NJL model with the Polyakov loop. A scalar coupling parameter dependent on the magnetic field intensity is considered. The scalar coupling has been fitted so that the lattice QCD pseudocritical chiral transition temperatures are reproduced and in the limit of large magnetic field decreases with the inverse of the magnetic field intensity. This dependence of the coupling allows us to reproduce the lattice QCD results with respect to the quark condensates and Polyakov loop: due to the magnetic field the quark condensates are enhanced at low and high temperatures and suppressed for temperatures close to the transition temperatures and the Polyakov loop increases with the magnetic field.

The behavior of the quark condensates at zero chemical potential and finite temperature subject to an external magnetic field is studied within the three flavor Nambu\char21{}Jona-Lasinio model with Polyakov loop (PNJL) and its extension, the so-called entangled PNJL model (EPNJL). A comparison with recent lattice QCD data is performed and it is shown that at $T=0\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$ the light quark condensates are in quantitative agreement. At finite temperature, although there is an overall reasonable agreement with several lattice results, it is shown that in the lattice calculations the effect due to the electric charge quark difference is stronger and the restoration of the $u$ quark chiral symmetry starts at lower temperatures. When considering the entangled PNJL model with a Polyakov loop scale parameter that depends on the magnetic field, it is possible to obtain an earlier rise of the Polyakov loop with the increase of the magnetic field and due to the entanglement, the inverse magnetic catalysis is found as in the lattice QCD calculations.

We investigate the phase diagram of the so-called Polyakov–Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model at finite temperature and non-zero chemical potential with three quark flavors. Chiral and deconfinement phase transitions are discussed and the relevant order-like parameters are analyzed. The results are compared with simple thermodynamic expectations and lattice data. We present the phase diagram in the (T, μB) plane, paying special attention to the critical end point: as the strength of the flavor-mixing interaction becomes weaker, the critical end point moves to low temperatures and can even disappear.

The modification of mesonic observables in a hot medium is analyzed as a tool to investigate the restoration of chiral and axial symmetries in the context of the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model. The results of the extended model lead to the conclusion that the effects of the Polyakov loop are fundamental for reproducing lattice findings. In particular, the partial restoration of the chiral symmetry is faster in the Polyakov–Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model than in the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio one, and it is responsible for several effects: the meson-quark coupling constants show a remarkable difference in both models, there is a faster tendency to recover the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka rule, and finally the topological susceptibility nicely reproduces the lattice results around $T/T_c\approx 1.0$.

We investigate the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter as a function of temperature and baryonic density/chemical potential, within Nambu–Jona-Lasinio type models. We perform a systematic study concerning the existence, location, and properties of a critical end point/tricritical point, both in SU(2) and SU(3) versions of the model. We verify that, for $m_u=m_d=0$ and up to a critical strange quark mass, there is a tricritical point, which becomes a critical end point in a world with realistic values of the current quark masses. The properties of physical observables, such as the baryon number susceptibility and the specific heat, are analyzed in the vicinity of the critical end point, with special focus on their critical exponents. The behavior of mesons in the $T-{\mu }_B({\rho }_B)$ plane is analyzed in connection with possible signatures of partial and effective restoration of chiral symmetry.

Hybrid stars with a quark phase described by the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model are studied. The hadron-quark model used to determine the stellar matter equation of state favors the appearance of quark matter: the coincidence of the deconfinement and chiral transitions and a low vacuum constituent quark mass. These two properties are essential to build equations of state that predict pure quark matter in the center of neutron stars. The effect of vector-isoscalar and vector-isovector terms is discussed, and it is shown that the vector-isoscalar terms are necessary to describe $2M_{\odot }$ hybrid stars, and the vector-isovector terms result in larger quark cores and a smaller deconfinement density.