  The Polyakov-quark-meson (PQM) model, which combines chiral as well as
deconfinement aspects of strongly interacting matter is introduced for three
light quark flavors. An analysis of the chiral and deconfinement phase
transition of the model and its thermodynamics at finite temperatures is given.
Three different forms of the effective Polyakov loop potential are considered.
The findings of the (2+1)-flavor model investigations are confronted to
corresponding recent QCD lattice simulations of the RBC-Bielefeld, HotQCD and
Wuppertal-Budapest collaborations. The influence of the heavier quark masses,
which are used in the lattice calculations, is taken into account. In the
transition region the bulk thermodynamics of the PQM model agrees well with the
lattice data.
