Related papers: The Strange Prospects for Astrophysics
This paper presents an investigation into the pycnonuclear reaction rates in dense crustal matter of neutron stars contaminated with strange quark matter nuggets. The presence of such nuggets in the crustal matter of neutron stars would be…
We discuss the first-order phase transition of QCD at high temperature in the universe and the possible formation of quark-matter lumps through cooling in regions of increased pressure. We show tha similarity of results using confinement…
Strange quark matter (SQM) may be the true ground state of hadronic matter, indicating that the observed pulsars may actually be strange stars, but not neutron stars. According to this SQM hypothesis, the existence of a hydrostatically…
It is shown that protostrange stars (PSSs) can be convective and that there are two possible scenarios describing their turbulence. Besides the local turbulence on the scale which is less than the mean free path of neutrinos, large-scale…
The cosmic first order phase transition from quarks to hadrons, occurring a few microseconds after the Big Bang, would lead to the formation of quark nuggets which would be stable on a cosmological time scale, if the associated baryon…
It has been predicted that quark and hybrid stars, containing strange quark matter in their core, have a significantly smaller radius than ordinary neutron stars. Preliminary X-ray observations of isolated neutron stars indicated a…
There is increasing observational evidence for the existence of strange stars: ultra-compact objects whose interior consists entirely of deconfined quark matter. If confirmed, their existence places constraints on the rate of formation of…
We present studies of the collapse of neutron stars that undergo a hadron-quark phase transition. A spherical Lagrangian hydrodynamic code has been written. As initial condition we take different neutron star configurations taking into…
The core of neutron-star matter is supposed to be at a much higher density than the normal nuclear matter density for which various possibilities have been suggested such as, for example, meson or hyperon condensation and/or deconfined…
In this conference proceeding, I discuss in detail the deconfinement to quark matter that takes place at large densities and/or temperatures. The first-order phase transition that is assumed to appear beyond a critical point gives rise to…
For physically reasonable bulk and surface properties, quark matter has recently been found to coexist with nuclear matter inside neutron stars in a uniform background of electrons. The microstructure of this mixed phase starts out with a…
According to quantum chromodynamics, matter at ultra-high density and low temperature is a quark liquid, with a condensate of Cooper pairs of quarks near the Fermi surface ("color superconductivity"). This paper reviews the physics of color…
Recent developments in neutron star theory and observation are discussed. Based on modern nucleon-nucleon potentials more reliable equations of state for dense nuclear matter have been constructed. Furthermore, phase transitions such as…
It has recently been suggested that collapse of neutron stars induced by a phase transition to quark matter can be a considerable source of gravitational waves with kHz frequencies. We demonstrate that if about one percent of all neutron…
Some of the means through which the possible presence of nearly deconfined quarks in neutron stars can be detected by astrophysical observations of neutron stars from their birth to old age are highlighted.
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. Although this has…
The transition to quark matter can take place in neutron stars. The structure of a hybrid star, containing a core made of quark matter is discussed. The maximum mass of the non-rotating hybrid star turns out to be 1.6 M_s. Possible…
Compact relativistic stars allow us to study the nature of matter under extreme conditions, probing regions of parameter space that are otherwise inaccessible. Nuclear theory in this regime is not well constrained: one key issue is whether…
The phase diagram of a system constituted of neutrons, protons, $\Lambda$-hyperons and electrons is evaluated in the mean-field approximation in the complete three-dimensional space given by the baryon, lepton and strange charge. It is…
Under extreme conditions of temperature and/or density, quarks and gluons are expected to undergo a deconfinement phase transition. While this is an ephemeral phenomenon at the ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collider (BNL-RHIC), quark matter…