Abstract
THE possibility of a phase transition between nuclear matter and quark matter has been discussed in recent work1–13. Free quarks would presumably appear above a critical density pq, which is greater than the typical density ρn ≃ 2.5 × 1014g cm−3 within ordinary atomic nuclei. Such a transition might allow stable collapsed stars to exist wherein much of the matter is in the form of quark matter (quark stars). The maximum masses of collapsed stars have been investigated for the extreme case of ρq ≃ ρn and hard equations of state for quark matter5. However, it has been argued6,8,9 that some equations of state for quark matter require ρq >> ρn and are therefore unlikely to permit the existence of stable quark stars. We investigate here the properties of collapsed stars in the context of another class of quark-matter models that has recently been proposed11–13. These models12, which are consistent with all experimental nuclear and high-energy physics data, are based on a quantum chromodynamic treatment of quarks that are assumed to be of low mass (≲100 MeV for the lightest quarks). We find that stable quark stars are possible (compare with refs 6, 8, 9). However, we also conclude (compare with refs 5, 14) that such stars need not have significantly different macroscopic properties from those of neutron-star models15–17 based on conventional nuclear-matter equations of state.
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FECHNER, W., JOSS, P. Quark stars with ‘realistic’ equations of state. Nature 274, 347–349 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/274347a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/274347a0
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