Polyakov loop in chiral quark models at finite temperature

We describe how the inclusion of the gluonic Polyakov loop incorporates large gauge invariance and drastically modifies finite temperature calculations in chiral quark models after color neutral states are singled out. This generates an effective theory of quarks and Polyakov loops as basic degrees of freedom. We find a strong suppression of finite temperature effects in hadronic observables triggered by approximate triality conservation (Polyakov cooling), so that while the center symmetry breaking is exponentially small with the constituent quark mass, chiral symmetry restoration is exponentially small with the pion mass. To illustrate the point we compute some low energy observables at finite temperature and show that the finite temperature corrections to the low energy coefficients are $N_c$ suppressed due to color average of the Polyakov loop. Our analysis also shows how the phenomenology of chiral quark models at finite temperature can be made compatible with the expectations of chiral perturbation theory. The implications for the simultaneous center symmetry breaking-chiral symmetry restoration phase transition are also discussed.