We present results for several thermodynamic quantities within the next-to-leading order calculation of the thermodynamic potential in perturbative QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential including non-vanishing quark masses. These results are compared to lattice data and to higher-order optimized perturbative calculations to investigate the trend brought about by mass corrections.

We use next-to-leading-order in perturbation theory to investigate the effects of a finite isospin density on the thermodynamics of cold strongly interacting matter. Our results include nonzero quark masses and are compared to lattice data.

Abstract. The quark degrees of freedom of the QGP with special focus on mass effects are investigated. A next-to-leading-order perturbation theory approach with quark mass dependence is applied and compared to lattice QCD results.