Polyakov loop potential at finite density

The Polyakov loop potential serves to distinguish between the confined hadronic and the deconfined quark–gluon plasma phases of QCD. For Nf=2+1 quark flavors with physical masses we determine the Polyakov loop potential at finite temperature and density and extract the location of the deconfinement transition. We find a crossover at small values of the chemical potential running into a critical end-point at μ/T>1.