Is there Quark Matter in (Low-Mass) Pulsars?

Abstract

The effect of the QCD phase transition is studied for the mass-radius relation of compact stars and for hot and dense matter at a given proton fraction used as input in core-collapse supernova simulations. The phase transitions to the 2SC and CFL color superconducting phases lead to stable hybrid star configurations with a pure quark matter core. In supernova explosions quark matter could be easily produced due to $\beta$-equilibrium, small proton fractions and nonvanishing temperatures. A low critical density for the phase transition to quark matter is compatible with present pulsar mass measurements.

4 pages, 3 figures, talk given at the QM2008 conference, Jaipur, India, February 4-10, 2008, JPG in press

References in corpus (4)

• Stability of CFL cores in Hybrid Stars
• The quark core of protoneutron stars in the phase diagram of quark matter
• Nuclear physics with spherically symmetric supernova models
• Is a soft nuclear equation of state extracted from heavy-ion data incompatible with pulsar data?

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Signals of the QCD phase transition in core-collapse supernovae