A new state of dense matter in neutron stars with nucleon structure
Abstract
The existence of stars with a large mass of 2 solar masses means that the equation of state is stiff enough to provide high enough pressure at large central densities. Previous work shows that such a stiff equation of state is possible if the ground state has nucleons as its constituents. We find this to be so in a chiral soliton ( skyrmion ) model for a composite nucleon which has bound state quarks. The strong binding of the quarks in this composite nucleon is plausibly the origin of the nucleon-nucleon hard core. In this model we find a new state of superdense matter at high density which is a 'topological'cubic crystal of overlapping composite nucleons that are solitons with relativistic quark bound states. The quarks are frozen in a filled band of a unique state, which not an eigenstate of spin or isospin but an eigenstate of spin plus isospin, S + I = 0. In this alternative model we find that all neutron stars have no regular `free'quark matter. Neutron stars whose central density crosses a threshold baryon density of approximately, nb 1/fm3 , will become unstable and go through a decompression (sudden) density discontinuity to conventional quark matter. Sequentially, this contraction of the core of the star will soften the equation of state release a large amount of gravitational potential energy which can give rise to a shock wave and matter ejection. Since the merger of two neutron stars gives a compact state whose mass is larger than the allowed maximum mass, this will be followed by a jet and a short gamma ray burst while transiting into a black hole.