Neutron star structure with a new force between quarks

Abstract

The discovery of nondiffuse sources of gravitational waves through compact-object mergers opens new prospects for the study of physics beyond the Standard Model. In this paper, we study the effects of a new force between quarks, suggested by the gauging of baryon number, on pure neutron matter at supranuclear densities. This leads to a stiffening of the equation of state, allowing neutron stars to be both larger and heavier and possibly accommodating the light progenitor of GW190814 as a neutron star. The role of conventional three-body forces in neutron star structure is still poorly understood, though they can act in a similar way, implying that the mass and radius do not in themselves resolve whether new physics is coming into play. However, a crucial feature of the scenario we propose is that the regions of the new physics parameter space that induce observable changes to neutron star structure are testable at low-energy accelerator facilities. This testability distinguishes our scenario from other classes of new phenomena in dense matter.