Abstract
The behavior of QCD at high baryon density and low temperature is crucial to understanding the properties of neutron stars and gravitational waves emitted during their mergers. In this paper we study small systems of baryons in periodic boundary conditions to probe the properties of QCD at high baryon density. By comparing calculations based on nucleon degrees of freedom to simple quark models we show that specific features of the nuclear spectrum, including shell structure and nucleon pairing, emerge if nucleons are the primary degrees of freedom. Very small systems should also be amenable to studies in lattice QCD, unlike larger systems where the fermion sign problem is much more severe. Through comparisons of lattice QCD and nuclear calculations it should be possible to gain, at least at a semi-quantitative level, more understanding of the cold dense equation of state as probed in neutron stars.
Highlights
Understanding quantitatively the properties of QCD at low temperature and high baryon density remains one of the most challenging problems in nuclear physics
The behavior of QCD at high baryon density and low temperature is crucial to understanding the properties of neutron stars and gravitational waves emitted during their mergers
In this paper we study small systems of baryons in periodic boundary conditions to probe the properties of QCD at high baryon density
Summary
Understanding quantitatively the properties of QCD at low temperature and high baryon density remains one of the most challenging problems in nuclear physics It is increasingly important as it governs the behavior of neutron stars including their mass-radius relations Small volumes will typically result in large excitation energies, reflecting the wider spacing in the singleparticle spectra, as discussed below This will be less true for comparison of different pairing symmetries that are degenerate in the free-particle limit. Studies of small systems are ill-suited to capture critical behavior and cannot precisely identify possible phase transitions, this work is well motivated because presently we lack even a qualitative understanding of how quark degrees of freedom might emerge at high density.
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