New Type of Matter Discovered:

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by paddoboy, Jun 4, 2020.

  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    27,543
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200601120036.htm

    Summary:
    A research group has found strong evidence for the presence of exotic quark matter inside the cores of the largest neutron stars in existence. The conclusion was reached by combining recent results from theoretical particle and nuclear physics to measurements of gravitational waves from neutron star collisions.

    A Finnish research group has found strong evidence for the presence of exotic quark matter inside the cores of the largest neutron stars in existence. The conclusion was reached by combining recent results from theoretical particle and nuclear physics to measurements of gravitational waves from neutron star collisions.

    All normal matter surrounding us is composed of atoms, whose dense nuclei, comprising protons and neutrons, are surrounded by negatively charged electrons. Inside what are called neutron stars, atomic matter is, however, known to collapse into immensely dense nuclear matter, in which the neutrons and protons are packed together so tightly that the entire star can be considered one single enormous nucleus.

    Up until now, it has remained unclear whether inside the cores of the most massive neutron stars nuclear matter collapses into an even more exotic state called quark matter, in which the nuclei themselves no longer exist. Researchers from the University of Helsinki now claim that the answer to this question is yes. The new results were published in the journal Nature Physics.

    "Confirming the existence of quark cores inside neutron stars has been one of the most important goals of neutron star physics ever since this possibility was first entertained roughly 40 years ago," says Associate Professor Aleksi Vuorinen from the University of Helsinki's Department of Physics.
    more at link............
     
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  3. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Not sure if the headlines are accurate, "New type of matter discovered" as quark matter is obviously the next step down from recognised atomic nuclei and neutrons, and one step up from BH's.
    Also it is the state of matter that existed prior to t+3 minutes post BB, at which quarks combined to form protons and neutrons.

    I forgot the paper.....
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0914-9

    Evidence for quark-matter cores in massive neutron stars:
    Abstract
    The theory governing the strong nuclear force—quantum chromodynamics—predicts that at sufficiently high energy densities, hadronic nuclear matter undergoes a deconfinement transition to a new phase of quarks and gluons1. Although this has been observed in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions2,3, it is currently an open question whether quark matter exists inside neutron stars4. By combining astrophysical observations and theoretical ab initio calculations in a model-independent way, we find that the inferred properties of matter in the cores of neutron stars with mass corresponding to 1.4 solar masses (M⊙) are compatible with nuclear model calculations. However, the matter in the interior of maximally massive stable neutron stars exhibits characteristics of the deconfined phase, which we interpret as evidence for the presence of quark-matter cores. For the heaviest reliably observed neutron stars5,6 with mass M ≈ 2M⊙, the presence of quark matter is found to be linked to the behaviour of the speed of sound cs in strongly interacting matter. If the conformal bound is not strongly violated, massive neutron stars are predicted to have sizable quark-matter cores. This finding has important implications for the phenomenology of neutron stars and affects the dynamics of neutron star mergers with at least one sufficiently massive participant.

     
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