Strongly interacting matter exhibits deconfined behavior in massive neutron stars

Eemeli Annala, Tyler Gorda (), Joonas Hirvonen (), Oleg Komoltsev (), Aleksi Kurkela (), Joonas Nättilä () and Aleksi Vuorinen ()
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Eemeli Annala: University of Helsinki
Tyler Gorda: Technische Universität Darmstadt, Department of Physics
Joonas Hirvonen: University of Helsinki
Oleg Komoltsev: University of Stavanger
Aleksi Kurkela: University of Stavanger
Joonas Nättilä: Flatiron Institute
Aleksi Vuorinen: University of Helsinki

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Neutron-star cores contain matter at the highest densities in our Universe. This highly compressed matter may undergo a phase transition where nuclear matter melts into deconfined quark matter, liberating its constituent quarks and gluons. Quark matter exhibits an approximate conformal symmetry, predicting a specific form for its equation of state (EoS), but it is currently unknown whether the transition takes place inside at least some physical neutron stars. Here, we quantify this likelihood by combining information from astrophysical observations and theoretical calculations. Using Bayesian inference, we demonstrate that in the cores of maximally massive stars, the EoS is consistent with quark matter. We do this by establishing approximate conformal symmetry restoration with high credence at the highest densities probed and demonstrating that the number of active degrees of freedom is consistent with deconfined matter. The remaining likelihood is observed to correspond to EoSs exhibiting phase-transition-like behavior, treated as arbitrarily rapid crossovers in our framework.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44051-y

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