Chiral Symmetry Restoration and Deconfinement to Quark Matter in Neutron Stars

TL;DR

This paper develops an extended hadronic-quark model calibrated with lattice QCD data to study the QCD phase diagram and predict neutron star properties, including deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration.

Contribution

It introduces a unified effective model interpolating between hadronic and quark matter, calibrated with lattice data, to analyze neutron star equations of state.

Findings

Model successfully reproduces QCD phase diagram features.

Predicts neutron star mass-radius relationships.

Indicates deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration in neutron stars.

Abstract

We describe an extension of the hadronic SU(3) non-linear sigma model to include quarks. As a result, we obtain an effective model which interpolates between hadronic and quark degrees of freedom. The new parameters and the potential for the Polyakov loop (used as the order parameter for deconfinement) are calibrated in order to fit lattice QCD data and reproduce the QCD phase diagram. Finally, the equation of state provided by the model, combined with gravity through the inclusion of general relativity, is used to make predictions for neutron stars.