Speaker
Description
I will review recent progress in the model-independent constraining of the properties of neutron-star matter using ab-initio tools from theoretical particle and nuclear physics. In particular, I will discuss results from a new study employing Bayesian inference methods and taking input from both electromagnetic and gravitational-wave observations, which point to the rapid conformalization of matter close to the central densities of the most massive stable stars. These results point towards the likely existence of quark-matter cores inside massive neutron stars, the likelihood of which we estimate to be around 80-90%.
In addition, I will briefly discuss, how a combination of ab-initio microscopic calculations and the eventual recording of a postmerger gravitational-wave signal can provide insights to the off-equilibrium dynamics of dense QCD matter and confirm the dynamical creation of deconfined matter during binary neutron-star mergers.
