2021/04/28 by Yong-Liang Ma, Ma, Yong-Liang, Mannque Rho +1
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2104.13822
openalex publication_date 2021/04/28 · openalex created_date 2021/05/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
When baryon-quark continuity is formulated in terms of a topology change without invoking "explicit " QCD degrees of freedom at a density higher than twice the nuclear matter density n0 the core of massive compact stars can be described in terms of fractionally charged particles, behaving neither like pure baryons nor deconfined quarks. Hidden symmetries, both local gauge and pseudo-conformal (or broken scale), lead to the pseudo-conformal (PC) sound velocity vpcs2/c2≈ 1/3 at \gsim 3n0 in compact stars. We argue these symmetries are "emergent" from strong nuclear correlations and conjecture that they reflect hidden symmetries in QCD proper exposed by nuclear correlations. We establish a possible link between the quenching of gA in superallowed Gamow-Teller transitions in nuclei and the precocious onset at n\gsim 3n0 of the PC sound velocity predicted at the dilaton limit fixed point. We propose that bringing in explicit quark degrees of freedom as is done in terms of the "quarkyonic" and other hybrid hadron-quark structure and our topology-change strategy represent the "hadron-quark duality" formulated in terms of the Cheshire-Cat mechanism~\citeCC for the smooth cross-over between hadrons and quarks. Confrontation with currently available experimental observations is discussed to support this notion.