Testing the phase transition parameters inside neutron stars with the production of protons and lambdas in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

We demonstrate the consistency of the quark deconfinement phase transition parameters in the beta-stable neutron star matter and in the nearly symmetric nuclear matter formed in heavy-ion collisions (HICs). We investigate the proton and $\Lambda$ flow in Au+Au collisions at 3 and 4.5 GeV/nucleon incident beam energies with the pure hadron cascade version of a multi-phase transport model. The phase transition in HICs and neutron stars is described based on a class of hybrid equations of state from the quark mean-field model for the hadronic phase and a constant-speed-of-sound parametrization for the high-density quark phase. The measurements of the anisotropic proton flow at 3 GeV/nucleon by the STAR collaboration favor a relatively low phase transition density lower than $\sim 2.5$ times saturation density indicated by the gravitational wave and electromagnetic observations of neutron stars. And the proton flow data at the higher energy of 4.5 GeV/nucleon can be used to effectively constrain the softness of high-density quark matter equations of state. Finally, compared to the proton flow, the $\Lambda$ flow is found to be less sensitive and not constraining to the equations of state.

7 pages, 7 figures, Phys. Rev. D (2023) accepted

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Dense Matter in Neutron Stars with eXTP
• Resolving phase transition properties of dense matter through tidal-excited g-mode from inspiralling neutron stars
• Properties of First-Order Hadron-Quark Phase Transition from Inverting Neutron Star Observables
• Impact of the nuclear equation of state on the formation of twin stars
• Two-flavor color superconducting quark stars may not exist
• Hybrid stars may have an inverted structure
• Phase transition and nuclear symmetry energy from neutron star observations: Constraints in light of PSR J0614--3329
• Exploring pathways to forming twin stars
• Thermal x-ray studies of neutron stars and the equation of state
• Anti-flow of Mesons in the High Baryon Density Region
• Examination of STAR fixed-target data on directed flow at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 3 and 4.5 GeV
• Predictions of baryon directed flow in heavy-ion collisions at high baryon density
• Nucleon-$\Delta$ elastic cross section in isospin-asymmetric nuclear medium with inclusion of scalar-isovector $\delta$ meson field
• Constraining the Phase-Transition EoS using the Energy Dependence of Directed Flow