Hybrid neutron stars with the Thomas-Fermi approximation and nonlocal Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model

Abstract

We probe the outcomes of the baryon-quark phase transition in the hybrid neutron star (HNS) structure with the help of the Gibbs and Maxwell constructions, adopting a semiclassical mean-field (MF) model for the equation of state (EOS) of baryonic matter based on the Thomas-Fermi (TF) approximation and a nonlocal extension of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model for the EOS of the deconfined quark phase. We find that the repulsive vector contribution of the nonlocal NJL (NNJL) EOS plays an inevitable role in modeling a stable $2{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$ HNS. Our results exclude the emergence of the pure quark phase in the inner core of a stable HNS. Within the Gibbs construction, as the quark vector interaction becomes stronger, the contribution of the baryon-quark coexisting phase in the total HNS mass is reduced. On the other hand, a stable HNS is not predicted within the Maxwell construction because it does not include a pure quark core. A comparison is made to the corresponding results employing the local (standard) NJL (LNJL) model of quark matter. Fulfilling the observational constraints, our model indicates that a neutron star (NS) with canonical mass of around $1.4{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$ is not massive enough to be described as an HNS.