arXiv subjects

Débora Mroczek

Publications and source records attributed to Débora Mroczek.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

MUSES workflows for pQCD constraints on dense matter with finite quark masses

We present a modular implementation of next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD (pQCD) thermodynamics with finite strange quark mass in the MUSES Calculation Engine, enabling reproducible connections between high-density QCD calculations and neutron star observables. Using this implementation, we investigate the interplay between flavor symmetry and physically motivated renormalization-scale prescriptions in cold, $β$-equilibrated quark matter. We compare prescriptions associated with the conserved-charge $BQS$, isospin $BI_3S$, and $SU(3)$ Cartan $BI_3Y$ bases, and show that their different symmetry properties at finite perturbative order can significantly affect the predicted flavor composition. In particular, while the $BQS$ and $BI_3Y$ prescriptions yield the same reduced $β$-equilibrated \eos{} for $μ_S=0$, they can predict different flavor compositions, whereas the $BI_3S$ prescription generates additional contributions to the charge-neutrality condition and develops strong scale dependence at low chemical potentials. We then apply stability and causality constraints to investigate the effect of the strange quark mass on the neutron star \eos{}. In an exploratory benchmark at $μ_B=2.4$~GeV and fixed fiducial renormalization scale, increasing the fixed strange quark mass from $m_s=0$ to $m_s=300$~MeV reduces the fraction of \eos{} in our prior that is incompatible with the pQCD constraint from 51\% to 36\% and qualitatively changes the region of \eos{} space that is selected, retaining greater support for stiffer behavior. These results motivate systematic studies of strange quark mass and renormalization-scale uncertainties in pQCD constraints. The MUSES implementation provides a modular framework for such extensions and for future higher-order calculations.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2025

A finite temperature framework for quark matter with color-superconducting phases

Current observations of neutron stars and measurements of gravitational waves only provide constraints on the zero temperature ($T=0$) equation of state (EoS) of dense matter. The detection of the post-merger gravitational-wave signal from a binary neutron star merger would additionally provide access to finite-temperature properties of the EoS which contain more information about the composition and the interactions of dense matter than the cold EoS alone. In particular deconfined quark matter may be probed by its characteristic finite temperature effects. This is especially the case for color-superconducting phases, in which the quasiparticle contribution to the thermal pressure is exponentially suppressed at low temperatures. Here we develop a new finite $T$ framework to model the thermal EoS for dense quark matter based on the cold quark matter EoS which is useful for numerical relativity simulations. We test the validity of the framework against a three-flavor NJL mean-field calculation, both with and without diquark pairing. We find that even for the complicated phase diagram of the NJL model including multiple different phases the framework is accurate to the few percent level for temperatures up to $T\sim 50\,$MeV.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

BSQ Conserved Charges in Relativistic Viscous Hydrodynamics solved with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

Conservation laws play a crucial role in the modeling of heavy-ion collisions, including the those for charges such as baryon number (B), strangeness (S), and electric charge (Q). In this study, we present a new 2+1 relativistic viscous hydrodynamic code called CCAKE which uses the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) formalism to locally conserve BSQ charges, together with an extended description of the multi-dimensional equation of state (EoS) obtained from lattice Quantum Chromodynamics. Initial conditions for CCAKE are supplied by the ICCING model, which samples gluon splittings into quark anti-quark pairs to generate the initial BSQ charge distributions. We study correlations between the BSQ charges and find that local BSQ fluctuations remain finite during the evolution, with corresponding chemical potentials of ($\sim100$--$200 \,\rm MeV$) at freeze-out. We find that our framework produces reasonable multiplicities of identified particles and that ICCING has no significant effect on the collective flow of all charged particles nor of identified particles when only one particle of interest is considered. However, we show specifically for Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.02$ TeV that ICCING does have an effect on collective flow of identified particles if two particles of interest are considered.

nucl-th↗