Bounds on the Equation of State of Neutron Stars from High Energy Deeply Virtual Exclusive Experiments

Understand

The recent detection of gravitational waves from merging neutron star events has opened a new window on the many unknown aspects of their internal dynamics.

• A key role in this context is played by the transition from baryon to quark matter described in the neutron star equation of state (EoS).
• In particular, the binary pulsar observation of heavy neutron stars requires appropriately stiff dense matter in order to counter gravitational collapse, at variance with the predictions of many phenomenological quark models.
• On the other side, the LIGO observations favor a softer EoS therefore providing a lower bound to the equation stiffness.