Cold Dense Baryonic Matter and Compact Stars

TL;DR

This paper reviews efforts to understand cold dense baryonic matter inside neutron stars and related objects, using effective field theories and gravity dual models to explore mass origins and quantum chromodynamics effects.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental approaches to studying dense baryonic matter, including novel modeling techniques and future research directions.

Findings

Insights into the origin of proton mass (~99%)

Potential experimental methods to probe dense matter

Application of effective field theory and gravity dual models

Abstract

Probing dense hadronic matter is thus far an uncharted field of physics. Here we give a brief summary of the highlights of what has been so far accomplished and what will be done in the years ahead by the World Class University III Project at Hanyang University in the endeavor to unravel and elucidate the multifacet of the cold dense baryonic matter existing in the interior of the densest visible stable object in the Universe, i.e., neutron stars, strangeness stars and/or quark stars, from a modest and simplified starting point of an effective field theory modeled on the premise of QCD as well as from a gravity dual approach of hQCD. The core of the matter of our research is the possible origin of the $\sim 99%$ of the proton mass that is to be accounted for and how the "vacuum" can be tweaked so that the source of the mass generation can be uncovered by measurements made in terrestrial as well as space laboratories. Some of the issues treated in the program concern what can be done - both theoretically and experimentally - in anticipation of what's to come for basic physics research in Korea.