Neutron Stars as a Probe for Dense Matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how neutron star properties change during cooling, using an effective chiral model that includes hadronic and quark matter, providing insights into dense matter behavior at extreme conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model for neutron star cooling that incorporates chiral restoration and quark deconfinement effects, linking microscopic physics to macroscopic star properties.

Findings

Chiral restoration and quark deconfinement significantly affect neutron star evolution.

Computed mass and radius align with observational data.

Model offers new insights into matter at extreme densities.

Abstract

We study different stages of the neutron star cooling by computing neutron star properties at various temperatures and entropies using an effective chiral model including hadronic and quark degrees of freedom. Macroscopic properties of the star such as mass and radius are calculated and compared with observations. It can be seen that the effects of chiral restoration and deconfinement to quark matter in the core of the neutron star at different stages of the evolution can be significant for the evolution of the star and allow insight into the behaviour of matter at extreme densities.