Understand
Explosive astrophysical systems - such as supernovae or compact star binary mergers - provide conditions where exotic degrees of freedom can be populated.
- Within the covariant density functional theory of nuclear matter we build several general purpose equations of state which, in addition to the baryonic octet, account for $\Delta(1232)$ resonance states.
- The thermodynamic stability of $\Delta$-admixed nuclear matter is investigated in the limiting case of vanishing temperature for charge fractions $Y_Q=0.01$ and $Y_Q=0.5$ and wide ranges of the coupling constants to the scalar and vector mesonic fields.
- General purpose equation of state models with exotica presently available on the \textsc{CompOSE} database are further reviewed; for a selection of them we then investigate thermal properties for thermodynamic conditions relevant for core-collapse supernovae and binary neutron star mergers.