Exploring phases of dense QCD with compact stars

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in understanding dense QCD phases within compact stars, focusing on cooling, transport properties, and phase transitions induced by rotation, highlighting complex phenomena in extreme astrophysical environments.

Contribution

It synthesizes recent developments in the physics of dense QCD matter in compact stars, emphasizing phase transitions, transport coefficients, and rotational effects.

Findings

Cooling mechanisms involving phase transitions from gapped to gapless QCD phases.

Transport properties of the 2SC phase influenced by Aharonov-Bohm interactions.

Phase transitions triggered by spin-down and spin-up in rotating compact stars.

Abstract

I review a number of recent developments in the physics of compact stars containing deconfined quark matter, including (a)~their cooling with possible phase transition from a fully gapped to a gapless phase of QCD at low temperatures and large isospin, (b)~the transport coefficients of the 2SC phase and the role played by the Aharonov-Bohm interactions between flux-tubes and unpaired fermions; (c)~rapidly rotating compact stars and spin-down and spin-up induced phase transition between hadronic and QCD matter as well as between different phases of QCD.