Speaker
Description
Neutron stars are the densest astrophysical objects in our universe, reaching densities
as high as those realized in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. In these collisions
ordinary nuclear matter melts into a new phase of elementary particle matter, quark matter.
This naturally raises the question: does quark matter also exist inside neutron stars? The rapid
advancement in neutron-star observations in combination with state-of-the-art theoretical calculations
is providing us with an unprecedented view of the extreme matter deep in the cores of the stars.
In my talk, I describe how recent advancements in theory of superdense matter inform us about
what lies in the centers of neutron stars and how different constraints point to the existence of
quark matter cores in large neutron stars.