Lennard-Jones quark matter and massive quark stars

Understand

Quark clustering could occur in cold quark matter because of the strong coupling between quarks at realistic baryon densities of compact stars.

• Although one may still not be able to calculate this conjectured matter from first principles, the inter-cluster interaction might be analogized to the interaction between inert molecules.
• Cold quark matter would then crystallize in a solid state if the inter-cluster potential is deep enough to trap the clusters in the wells.
• We apply the Lennard-Jones potential to describe the inter-cluster potential, and derive the equations of state, which are stiffer than that derived in conventional models (e.g., MIT bag model).