Deconfining Phase Transition to a Quark-Gluon Plasma in Different SU(3) Color Representations

For a statistical description of the quark gluon plasma (QGP) considering its internal symmetry, we calculate its partition function using the group theoretical projection method. We project out the partition function of a QGP consisting of gluons, massless up and down quarks, and massive strange quarks onto the singlet representation of the SU(3) color group, as well as onto the color octet and the color 27-plet representations. A comparison of these color representations is done, by studying their effects on the behavior of some thermodynamical quantities characterizing the mixed hadronic gas-QGP system undergoing a thermal deconfining phase transition on one side, and on the free energy during the formation of a QGP droplet from the hot hadronic gas on another side.