ANALYZING HADRON-QUARK MATTER PHASE TRANSITION BY MACROSCOPIC PROPERTIES OF NEUTRON STARS

Abstract

A complementary way to investigate the Hadron-Quark-Gluon Phase transition in heavy ion collisions is to analyze properties of dense astrophysical objects, i.e. neutron stars. A neutron star can be simply described as a giant nucleus. However, due to the enormous gravitational contraction, it can reach densities up to several times the density found in the Pb nucleus. This property allows the formation of a core made up of free quarks and gluons. Once this new phase is formed, the new state drastically changes the neutron star macroscopic properties, such as its mass and radius. In the present work, we follow a route opposite to the common sense, investigating the properties of the phase transition by analyzing neutron star properties of mass and radius. This observations can determine the density where the transition can occur or the order of the transition using some sort of reverse engineering. As a consequence, the values of the bag constant or the strong coupling constant can be inferred.