Asset Details
Do you wish to reserve the book?
Evidence for quark-matter cores in massive neutron stars
Hey, we have placed the reservation for you!
By the way, why not check out events that you can attend while you pick your title.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place the reservation. Kindly try again later.
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
Evidence for quark-matter cores in massive neutron stars
Do you wish to request the book?
Evidence for quark-matter cores in massive neutron stars
Please be aware that the book you have requested cannot be checked out. If you would like to checkout this book, you can reserve another copy
We have requested the book for you!
Your request is successful and it will be processed during the Library working hours. Please check the status of your request in My Requests.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place your request. Kindly try again later.
Journal Article
Evidence for quark-matter cores in massive neutron stars
2020
Overview
The theory governing the strong nuclear force—quantum chromodynamics—predicts that at sufficiently high energy densities, hadronic nuclear matter undergoes a deconfinement transition to a new phase of quarks and gluons
1
. Although this has been observed in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions
2
,
3
, it is currently an open question whether quark matter exists inside neutron stars
4
. By combining astrophysical observations and theoretical ab initio calculations in a model-independent way, we find that the inferred properties of matter in the cores of neutron stars with mass corresponding to 1.4 solar masses (
M
⊙
) are compatible with nuclear model calculations. However, the matter in the interior of maximally massive stable neutron stars exhibits characteristics of the deconfined phase, which we interpret as evidence for the presence of quark-matter cores. For the heaviest reliably observed neutron stars
5
,
6
with mass
M
≈ 2
M
⊙
, the presence of quark matter is found to be linked to the behaviour of the speed of sound
c
s
in strongly interacting matter. If the conformal bound
c
s
2
≤
1
/
3
(ref.
7
) is not strongly violated, massive neutron stars are predicted to have sizable quark-matter cores. This finding has important implications for the phenomenology of neutron stars and affects the dynamics of neutron star mergers with at least one sufficiently massive participant.
The cores of neutron stars could be made of hadronic matter or quark matter. By combining first-principles calculations with observational data, evidence for the presence of quark matter in neutron star cores is found.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Publishing Group (NPG)
