Constraining neutron star matter with QCD

Understand

In recent years, there have been several successful attempts to constrain the equation of state of neutron star matter using input from low-energy nuclear physics and observational data.

• We demonstrate that significant further restrictions can be placed by additionally requiring the pressure to approach that of deconfined quark matter at high densities.
• Remarkably, the new constraints turn out to be highly insensitive to the amount --- or even presence --- of quark matter inside the stars.