Chiral transition and the quark-gluon plasma

We discuss a few recent results for the equation of state of strongly interacting matter and the dynamics of chiral phase transition. First, we consider the cases of very high densities, where weak-coupling approaches may in principle give reasonable results, and very low densities, where we use the framework of heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory. We also speculate on the nature of the chiral transition and present possible astrophysical implications. Next, we discuss the kinetics of phase conversion, through the nucleation of bubbles and spinodal decomposition, after a chiral transition within an effective field theory approach to low-energy QCD. We study possible effects resulting from the finite size of the expanding system for both the initial and the late-stage growth of domains, as well as those effects due to inhomogeneities in the chiral field which act as a background for the fermionic motion. We also argue how dissipation effects might dramatically modify the picture of explosive hadronization