This document summarizes the derivation of an effective free energy for QCD at strong coupling using a mean field approximation with 1 flavor staggered fermion. Key steps include:
1) Performing a path integral over spatial link variables to obtain quark propagators.
2) Introducing auxiliary bosonic fields using a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation to obtain a bilinear form in quark fields.
3) Applying a mean field approximation to the auxiliary fields.
4) Exactly integrating over temporal links, quark and auxiliary baryon fields to obtain an effective free energy in terms of the auxiliary meson field.
5) Analyzing the effective free energy to determine the QCD phase diagram as functions of temperature and