Related papers: Neutron stars and the cosmological constant proble…
We study the QCD phase diagram using a non-local SU(3) NJL model with vector interactions among quarks. We analyze several thermodynamic quantities such as entropy and specific heat, and study the influence of vector interactions on the…
Finite density corrections to the lighter-than-QCD axion can invert the effective axion potential, sourcing a non-trivial axion field inside dense objects. We perform the first numerical study of the complete dynamics of the…
The transition from hadronic matter to quark matter in the core of neutron stars is likely to be associated with the appearance of a mixed phase, leading to a smooth variation of the star density profile. We discuss the results of a…
The cosmological constant term (CC), $\Lambda$, is a pivotal ingredient in the standard model of cosmology or $\Lambda$CDM, but it is a rigid quantity for the entire cosmic history. This is unnatural and inconsistent. Different theoretical…
There are now two cosmological constant problems: (i) why the vacuum energy is so small and (ii) why it comes to dominate at about the epoch of galaxy formation. Anthropic selection appears to be the only approach that can naturally resolve…
We study the structural and dynamical consequences of introducing a distributional density profile inside a neutron star, representing a massless, topological shell located at an arbitrary radius. We incorporate this effect into the…
In this letter we calculate the energy loss of highly magnetized neutron star due to friction with quantum vacuum, namely Quantum Vacuum Friction (QVF). Taking into account one-loop corrections in the effective Heisenberg-Euler Lagrangian…
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…
Anisotropic phases potentially play a role in the internal composition of neutron stars, the main laboratory for the phase structure of QCD at high baryon densities. We review the study of such a phase, the chiral density wave, within a…
Numerical simulations of binary neutron stars by Wilson, Mathews, and Marronetti indicated that neutron stars that are stable in isolation can be made to collapse to black holes when placed in a binary. This claim was surprising as it ran…
Astrophysical observations of neutron stars probe the structure of dense nuclear matter and have the potential to reveal phase transitions at high densities. Most recent analyses are based on parametrized models of the equation of state…
In this conference-proceedings contribution, we review recent advances in placing model-independent constraints on the properties of cold and dense QCD matter inside neutron stars. In addition to introducing new bounds for the Equation of…
We study the effect of a strong magnetic field on the properties of neutron stars with a quark-hadron phase transition. It is shown that the magnetic field prevents the appearance of a quark phase, enhances the leptonic fraction, decreases…
I argue that a solution to the cosmological constant problem is to assume that the expectation value of the quantum vacuum stress-energy tensor is proportional to the metric tensor with a negative energy density and positive pressure. This…
In a cosmological phase transition in theories that admit Q-balls there is a value of the soliton charge above which the soliton becomes unstable and expands, converting space to the true vacuum, much like a critical bubble in the case of…
We study the role of the pasta phases on the properties of rotating and magnetized neutron stars. In order to investigate such systems, we make use of two different relativistic mean-field unified inner-crust--core equations of state, with…
Neutron stars are extremely relativistic objects which abound in our universe and yet are poorly understood, due to the high uncertainty on how matter behaves in the extreme conditions which prevail in the stellar core. It has recently been…
The old cosmological constant problem is to understand why the vacuum energy is so small; the new problem is to understand why it is comparable to the present mass density. Several approaches to these problems are reviewed. Quintessence…
Transitions of nuclear compositions in the crust of a neutron star induced by stellar spin-down are evaluated at zero temperature. We construct a compressible liquid-drop model for the energy of nuclei immersed in a neutron gas, including…
The different phases of QCD at finite temperature and density lead to interesting effects in cosmology and astrophysics. In this work I review some aspects of the cosmological QCD transition and of astrophysics at high baryon density.