Evidence for quark-matter cores in massive neutron stars
Evidence for quark-matter cores in massive neutron stars
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DOI：
10.1038/s41567-020-0914-9
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发表时间：
2020-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
19.6
通讯作者：
Vuorinen, Aleksi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Annala, Eemeli;Gorda, Tyler;Vuorinen, Aleksi
控制强核力的理论量子色动力学预言，在足够高的能量密度下，强子核物质经历了一个解除禁闭的过渡，进入夸克和胶子的新阶段（1）。虽然这已经在超相对论重离子碰撞中观察到（2，3），但目前中子星内部是否存在夸克物质还是一个悬而未决的问题（4）。通过结合天体物理观测和理论从头计算在一个独立的模型的方式，我们发现，推断的性质的中子星的核心与质量对应的1.4太阳质量（M-圆点）是兼容的核模型计算。然而，在最大质量的稳定中子星内部的物质表现出的退禁闭相，我们解释为证据的存在夸克物质的核心的特性。对于质量M接近2 M（圆点）的最重的可靠观测中子星（5，6），夸克物质的存在被发现与强相互作用物质中声速c（s）的行为有关。如果共形边界cs2
The theory governing the strong nuclear force-quantum chromodynamics-predicts that at sufficiently high energy densities, hadronic nuclear matter undergoes a deconfinement transition to a new phase of quarks and gluons(1). Although this has been observed in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions(2,3), it is currently an open question whether quark matter exists inside neutron stars(4). By combining astrophysical observations and theoretical ab initio calculations in a model-independent way, we find that the inferred properties of matter in the cores of neutron stars with mass corresponding to 1.4 solar masses (M-circle dot) are compatible with nuclear model calculations. However, the matter in the interior of maximally massive stable neutron stars exhibits characteristics of the deconfined phase, which we interpret as evidence for the presence of quark-matter cores. For the heaviest reliably observed neutron stars(5,6) with mass M approximate to 2M(circle dot), the presence of quark matter is found to be linked to the behaviour of the speed of sound c(s) in strongly interacting matter. If the conformal bound cs2