Deconfinement transition: a three dimensional model

We present a three dimensional model for quark matter with a density depend ent quark-quark (confining) potential, which allows to describe a sort of d econfinement transition as the system evolves from a low density assembly o f bound structures to a high density free Fermi gas of quarks. We consider different confining potentials, some of which successfully utilized in hadr on spectroscopy. We find that a proper treatment of the many-body correlati ons induced by the medium is essential to disentangle the different nature of the two (hadronic and deconfined) phases of the system. For this purpose the ground state energy per particle and the pair correlation function are investigated.