Strange quark matter in explosive astrophysical systems

Understand

Explosive astrophysical systems, such as supernovae or compact star binary mergers, provide conditions where strange quark matter can appear.

• The high degree of isospin asymmetry and temperatures of several MeV in such systems may cause a transition to the quark phase already around saturation density.
• Observable signals from the appearance of quark matter can be predicted and studied in astrophysical simulations.
• As input in such simulations, an equation of state with an integrated quark matter phase transition for a large temperature, density and proton fraction range is required.