Speaker
Description
We discuss the possibility of a first-order phase transition from hadronic matter to deconfined quark matter under various circumstances. The hadronic part is described by a relativistic mean field equation of state, which enables us to span a wide net of scenarios while still employing a microphysically motivated setup. In order to examine the full parameter space, we use multiple approaches of increasing sophistication for the quark phase. We place a particular focus on the detectability of phase transitions through current and future observations, like mass, radius, and gravitational wave events. One of the clearest signals for a phase transition is twin stars, where two neutron stars with the same mass feature very different radii. However, recent data disfavors this scenario, increasing the difficulty of conclusively detecting the presence of quark matter in neutron stars. Despite this, radius constraints such as the NICER measurement of J0614 may point towards the existence of hybrid stars in a less definite fashion.
