  The relation between the deconfinement and chiral phase transition is
explored in the framework of an Polyakov-loop-extended two-flavor quark-meson
(PQM) model. In this model the Polyakov loop dynamics is represented by a
background temporal gauge field which also couples to the quarks. As a novelty
an explicit quark chemical potential and N_f-dependence in the Polyakov loop
potential is proposed by using renormalization group arguments. The behavior of
the Polyakov loop as well as the chiral condensate as function of temperature
and quark chemical potential is obtained by minimizing the grand canonical
thermodynamic potential of the system. The effect of the Polyakov loop dynamics
on the chiral phase diagram and on several thermodynamic bulk quantities is
presented.
