Neutron stars in the large-$N_{c}$ limit

Understand

We study the phase transition from dense baryonic matter to dense quark matter within the large-$N_{c}$ limit.

• By using simple constant speed of sound equations of state for the two phases, we derive the scaling with $N_{c}$ of the critical quark chemical potential $\mu_{c}^{\mathrm{crit}}$ for this phase transition.
• While quark matter is strongly suppressed at large $N_{c}$, the phase transition at a large but finite density could nevertheless be important to determine the maximum mass of compact stars.
• In particular, in the range $3\leq N_{c}\lesssim5.5$ the quark phase would take place in compact stars and would lead to the formation of an unstable branch of hybrid stars.