prof. dr hab. David Blaschke

Mass-radius relations and quark matter in compact stars

The equation of state of dense neutron star matter uniquely determines the structure of compact stars through the solution of Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations, providing in particular mass-radius relationships of spherically symmetric (slowly rotating) stars. The latter are, in principle, accessible to astophysical observations and can thus provide strong constraints to models of matter under extreme conditions. We summarize the present status of mass and radius measurements for compact stars and discuss a possibility to detect by them whether there exists a strong phase transition to quark matter in neutron star matter at high densities.