QCD sum rules with finite masses

The concept of QCD sum rules is extended to bound states composed of particles with finite mass such as scalar quarks or strange quarks. It turns out that mass corrections become important in this context. The number of relevant corrections is analyzed in a systematic discussion of the IR- and UV-divergencies, leading in general to a finite number of corrections. The results are demonstrated for a system of two massless quarks and two heavy scalar quarks.Comment: 15 pages, including two pictures to be found in an extra file. Latex neads epsf.st

Strong magnetic fields in a nonlocal Polyakov chiral quark model

We study the behavior of strongly interacting matter under an external constant magnetic field in the context of nonlocal chiral quark models that incorporate a coupling to the Polyakov loop. We find that at zero temperature the behavior of the quark condensates shows the expected magnetic catalysis effect, our predictions being in good quantitative agreement with lattice QCD results. On the other hand when the analysis is extended to the case of finite temperature our results show that nonlocal models naturally lead to the Inverse Magnetic Catalysis effect for both the chiral restoration and deconfinement transition temperatures