Related papers: Astrophysical Implications of the QCD phase transi…
In order to prove the existence of a critical end point (CEP) in the QCD phase diagram it is sufficient to demonstrate that at zero temperature $T=0$ a first order phase transition exists as a function of the baryochemical potential $\mu$,…
The presence of quark matter in neutron stars may affect several neutron star observables and the neutrino signal in core-collapse supernovae. These observables are sensitive to the phase of quark matter that is present in compact objects.…
A phase of strong interacting matter with deconfined quarks is expected in the core of massive neutron stars. We investigate the quark deconfinement phase transition in cold (T = 0) and hot beta-stable hadronic matter. Assuming a first…
Mergers of binary neutron stars create conditions of supranuclear density $n\gtrsim n_{\rm nuc}\simeq 0.17 {\rm fm}^{-3}$ and moderate temperature $50\lesssim T \lesssim 90 {\rm MeV}$. These events thus probe a sensitive region of the…
This paper provides an overview of the possible role of Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QDC) for neutron stars and strange stars. The fundamental degrees of freedom of QCD are quarks, which may exist as unconfined (color superconducting) particles…
The nature of core-collapse supernova (SN) explosions is yet incompletely understood. The present article revisits the scenario in which the release of latent heat due to a first-order phase transition, from normal nuclear matter to the…
The equation of state of deconfined strongly interacting matter at high densities remains an open question, with effects from quark pairing in the preferred color-flavor-locked (CFL) ground state possibly playing an important role. Recent…
A phase transition to quark matter can lead to interesting phenomenological consequences in core-collapse supernovae, e.g., triggering an explosion in spherically symmetric models. However, until now this explosion mechanism was only shown…
Along with compacting baryon (neutron) spacing, two very important factors come into play at once: the lack of self-stabilization within a compact neutron star (NS) associated with possible black hole (BH) horizon appearance and the phase…
At very large densities and/or temperatures a quark-hadron phase transition is expected to take place. Simulations of QCD on lattice at zero baryon density indicate that the transition occurs at $T_c \sim 150-170$ MeV. The calculations…
We show that within a recently developed nonlocal, chiral quark model the critical densities for a phase transition to color superconducting quark matter under neutron star conditions can be low enough that these phases occur in compact…
The centers of the core-collapse supernovae are one of the densest environments in the Universe. Under such conditions, it is conceivable that a first-order phase transition from ordinary nuclear matter to the quark-gluon plasma occurs.…
We calculate the grand canonical partition function at the one-loop level for scalar quantum electrodynamics at finite temperature and chemical potential. A classical background charge density with a charge opposite that of the scalars…
I use simple thermodynamic reasoning to argue that at temperatures of order a trillion kelvin, QCD, the theory which describes strongly interacting particles such as protons and neutrons under normal conditions, undergoes a phase transition…
Using an extended Polyakov-looped Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model to describe the baryon density fluctuations of quark matter along the isentropic trajectories corresponding to different $s/\rho_B$ values extracted from Au+Au collisions at…
In this work we study the case of deconfinement in compact star interiors in the presence of a strong first order phase transition associated to a critical end point in the QCD phase diagram. Neutron stars fulfilling these conditions show a…
The equation of state for quark matter is derived for a nonlocal, chiral quark model within the mean field approximation. We investigate the effects of a variation of the form factors of the interaction on the phase diagram of quark matter…
If the electroweak sector of the standard model is described by classically conformal dynamics, the early Universe evolution can be substantially altered. It is already known that---contrarily to the standard model case---a first order…
As the interior density of a neutron star can become very high, it has been expected and discussed that quark matter may exist inside it. To describe the transition from hadron to quark phases (and vice versa), there are mainly two methods;…
On the basis of the NJL model as an effective theory of QCD and analogies with condensed matter physics, we extract simple physical pictures of the chiral phase transition at finite temperature $T$ and/or chemical potential $\mu$ and…