Studying the onset of deconfinement with multi-messenger astronomy of neutron stars

Understand

With the first multi-messenger observation of a binary neutron star merger (GW170817) new constraints became available for masses and radii of neutron stars.

• We introduce a class of hybrid EoS that fulfils all these constraints and predicts a region in the mass-radius diagram that could be populated only by hybrid neutron stars with quark matter cores.
• A confirmation of this conjecture would be provided when the NICER radius measurement for the high-mass pulsar PSR J0740+6620 yields a radius less than 11 km.
• Would this radius measurement yield a result in excess of 12 km, this would allow for both, a purely hadronic and a hybrid nature of this star.