Phase transitions in neutron stars and their links to gravitational waves

Abstract

The recent direct observation of gravitational wave event $GW170817$ and its $GRB170817A$ signal has opened up a new window to study neutron stars and heralds a new era of Astronomy referred to as the Multimessenger Astronomy. Both gravitational and electromagnetic waves from a single astrophysical source have been detected for the first time. This combined detection offers an unprecedented opportunity to place constraints on the neutron star matter equation of state. The existence of a possible hadron-quark phase transition in the central regions of neutron stars is associated with the appearance of g-modes, which are extremely important as they could signal the presence of a pure quark matter core in the centers of neutron stars. Observations of g-modes with frequencies between 1 kHz and 1.5 kHz could be interpreted as evidence of a sharp hadron-quark phase transition in the cores of neutron stars. In this article, we shall review the description of the dense matter composing neutron stars, the determination of the equation of state of such matter, and the constraints imposed by astrophysical observations of these fascinating compact objects.

35 pages, 10 figures

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• Delta baryons and diquark formation in the cores of neutron stars
• Hot quark matter and (proto-) neutron stars
• Probing hybrid stars with gravitational waves via interfacial modes
• Exploring thermal effects of the hadron-quark matter transition in neutron star mergers
• Two first-order phase transitions in hybrid compact stars: higher-order multiplet stars, reaction modes and intermediate conversion speeds
• Oscillating magnetised hybrid stars under the magnifying glass of multi-messenger observations
• The Role of Baryon Structure in Neutron Stars
• Effects of Hadron-Quark Phase Transitions in Hybrid Stars within the NJL Model
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• Strong-interaction matter under extreme conditions from chiral quark models with nonlocal separable interactions
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• Hybrid stars with color superconducting cores in an extended FCM model
• Prospect of unraveling the first-order phase transition in neutron stars with $f$ and $p_1$ modes
• Gravitational-wave imprints of non-convex dynamics in binary neutron star mergers
• Spin-down induced quark-hadron phase transition in cold isolated neutron stars
• Impact of Multiple Phase Transitions in Dense QCD on Compact Stars
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• Gravitational-Wave Signatures of Nonstandard Neutrino Properties in Collapsing Stellar Cores
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• Color superconductivity on the lattice -- analytic predictions from QCD in a small box
• $g$-mode of neutron stars in pseudo-Newtonian gravity
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