Holographic quark matter with colour superconductivity and a stiff equation of state for compact stars

Understand

We present a holographic model of QCD with a first order chiral restoration phase transition with chemical potential, mu.

• The first order behaviour follows from allowing a discontinuity in the dual description as the quarks are integrated out below their constituent mass.
• The model predicts a deconfined yet massive quark phase at intermediate densities (350 MeV< mu <500 MeV), above the nuclear density phase, which has a very stiff equation of state and a speed of sound close to one.
• We also include a holographic description of a colour superconducting condensate in the chirally restored vacuum and study the resulting equation of state.