Quasiparticle model for the quark-gluon plasma: equation of state near T-c

We test the quark mass dependence implemented in the quasiparticle dispersion relations of our quasiparticle model for the QCD equation of state by comparing with recently available lattice QCD data near Tc employing almost physical quark masses. In addition, we emphasize the capability of our model to successfully describe lattice QCD results for imaginary chemical potential and to analytically continue the latter to real chemical potential.