Although asymptotic freedom is an essential feature of QCD, it is absent in effective chiral quark models like the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio and linear sigma models. In this work we advocate that asymptotic freedom plays a key role in the recently observed discrepancies between results of lattice QCD simulations and quark models regarding the behavior of the pseudocritical temperature T pc for chiral-symmetry restoration in the presence of a magnetic field B. We show that the lattice predictions that T pc decreases with B can be reproduced within the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model if the coupling constant G of the model decreases with B and the temperature. Without aiming at numerical precision, we support our claim by considering a simple ansatz for G that mimics the asymptotic-freedom behavior of the QCD coupling constant 1/α s ∼ ln(eB/ 2 QCD ) for large values of B.

The phenomenon of inverse magnetic catalysis of chiral symmetry in QCD predicted by lattice simulations can be reproduced within the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model if the coupling G of the model decreases with the strength B of the magnetic field and temperature T . The thermo-magnetic dependence of G(B, T ) is obtained by fitting recent lattice QCD predictions for the chiral transition order parameter. Different thermodynamic quantities of magnetized quark matter evaluated with G(B, T ) are compared with the ones obtained at constant coupling, G. The model with G(B, T ) predicts a more dramatic chiral transition as the field intensity increases. In addition, the pressure and magnetization always increase with B for a given temperature. Being parametrized by four magnetic field dependent coefficients and having a rather simple exponential thermal dependence our accurate ansatz for the coupling constant can be easily implemented to improve typical model applications to magnetized quark matter.

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