What Neutron Stars Teach Us about QCD?

by Eero Aleksi Kurkela (CERN)

Wednesday 6 Jun 2018, 14:00 → 15:30 Europe/Zurich

4/3-006 - TH Conference Room (CERN)

The structure of neutron stars is determined by a competition between gravity and the pressure of strong interactions, and as such neutron stars provide a unique macroscopic laboratory for QCD. The progress in the observational side is very fast: masses of over 30 neutron stars have been measured precisely, and the estimates of radii are getting increasingly accurate. The recent detection of gravitational waves originating from a merger of two neutron stars has opened a completely new window to neutron star structure. In my talk, I will describe how we can use first principles calculations in QCD to gain understanding of the structure of neutron stars, and how the astrophysical observations of neutron stars can help us understand the properties of QCD in conditions where no first principles calculations are available.