1. How perturbative QCD constrains the Equation of State at Neutron-Star densities
- Author
-
Oleg Komoltsev, Aleksi Kurkela, Institut de Physique des 2 Infinis de Lyon (IP2I Lyon), Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), and Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Subjects
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ,causality ,Nuclear Theory ,neutron star: density ,[PHYS.NUCL]Physics [physics]/Nuclear Theory [nucl-th] ,gravitation: model ,matter: interaction ,nucleus ,General Physics and Astronomy ,FOS: Physical sciences ,potential: thermodynamical ,Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) ,High Energy Physics - Phenomenology ,High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) ,[PHYS.HPHE]Physics [physics]/High Energy Physics - Phenomenology [hep-ph] ,stability: thermodynamical ,conservation law ,density: high ,quantum chromodynamics: perturbation theory ,Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Nuclear Experiment ,[PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph] ,equation of state ,saturation: density - Abstract
We demonstrate in a general and analytic way how high-density information about the equation of state (EoS) of strongly interacting matter obtained using perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD) constrains the same EoS at densities reachable in physical neutron stars. Our approach is based on utilizing the full information of the thermodynamic potentials at the high-density limit together with thermodynamic stability and causality. This requires considering the pressure as a function of chemical potential $p(\mu)$ instead of the commonly used pressure as a function of energy density $p(\epsilon)$. The results can be used to propagate the pQCD calculations reliable around 40$n_s$ to lower densities in the most conservative way possible. We constrain the EoS starting from only few times the nuclear saturation density $n \gtrsim 2.2 n_s$ and at $n = 5 n_s$ we exclude at least 65% of otherwise allowed area in the $(\epsilon - p)$-plane. This provides information complementary to astrophysical observations that should be taken into account in any complete statistical inference study of the EoS. These purely theoretical results are independent of astrophysical neutron-star input, and hence, they can also be used to test theories of modified gravity and BSM physics in neutron stars., Comment: v2: the version published in PRL. A comparison of publicly available EoSs with new constraints added to the appendix C
- Published
- 2021