Can we see the hadron-quark transition happening in neutron stars?

Abstract

In order to actually see the hadron-quark transition happening in a neutron star, we point out and study two static conditions (the transition hadronic density must be lower than the neutron star maximum hadronic density; the neutron star mass at the transition hadronic density must be in the observed range, of order 1.4 solar mass) and one dynamical condition (nucleation must occur during the star lifetime). We find that the mini-colapse acompanying the transition from metastable hadronic matter to quark matter may be relevant to explain macro-glitches and gamma ray bursts, but that the mecanism increasing the star density must be relatively fast, e.g. accretion but not slowing down. This rules out a scenario for gamma ray bursts proposed recently.