Magnetic structure of isospin-asymmetric QCD matter in neutron stars

Understand

We study QCD under the influence of background magnetic fields and isospin chemical potentials using lattice simulations.

• This setup exhibits a sign problem which is circumvented using a Taylor-expansion in the magnetic field.
• The ground state of the system in the pion condensation phase is found to exhibit a pronounced diamagnetic response.
• We elaborate on how this diamagnetism may contribute to the pressure balance in the inner core of strongly magnetized neutron stars.