Proving the CEP with compact stars?

Abstract

We present a model for hybrid compact stars composed of a quark core and a hadronic mantle with an abrupt first order phase transition at the interface and in accordance with the latest astrophysical measurements of two 2 M_sun pulsars. We demonstrate the possibility of a disconnected mass-radius sequence (third family) of high-mass pulsars as a distinct feature due to a large jump $\Delta \epsilon$ in the energy density of the first order phase transition setting in at ${\epsilon }_{\mathrm{crit}}\approx 500$ MeV/fm${}^3$ and fulfilling $\Delta \epsilon /{\epsilon }_{\mathrm{crit}}>0.6$. We conclude that the measurement of so called \textit{twin} compact stars at high mass (~ 2 M_sun) would support the existence of a first order phase transition in symmetric matter at zero temperature entailing the existence of a critical end point (CEP) in the QCD phase diagram.

4 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of the 17th Conference of Young Scientists and Specialists, Dubna, April 8-12, 2013

References in corpus (2)

• Generic conditions for stable hybrid stars
• Nonlocal PNJL models and heavy hybrid stars

Cited by in corpus (10)

• A new quark-hadron hybrid equation of state for astrophysics - I. High-mass twin compact stars
• Phases of dense matter in compact stars
• Consequences of a strong phase transition in the dense matter equation of state for the rotational evolution of neutron stars
• High-mass twins & resolution of the reconfinement, masquerade and hyperon puzzles of compact star interiors
• Astrophysical aspects of general relativistic mass twin stars
• Mass-radius constraints for compact stars and a critical endpoint
• Mass and radius constraints for compact stars and the QCD phase diagram
• Excluded volume effects in the hybrid star EoS
• Supporting the existence of the QCD critical point by compact star observations
• Twin stars: probe of phase transition from hadronic to quark matter