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P. K. Sahu

Publications and source records attributed to P. K. Sahu.

54 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

The hadron-quark phase transition in dense matter and neutron stars

We study the hadron-quark phase transition in the interior of neutron stars (NS's). We calculate the equation of state (EOS) of hadronic matter using the Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone formalism with realistic two-body and three-body forces, as well as a relativistic mean field model. For quark matter we employ the MIT bag model constraining the bag constant by using the indications coming from the recent experimental results obtained at the CERN SPS on the formation of a quark-gluon plasma. We find necessary to introduce a density dependent bag parameter, and the corresponding consistent thermodynamical formalism. We calculate the structure of NS interiors with the EOS comprising both phases, and we find that the NS maximum masses fall in a relatively narrow interval, $1.4 M_\odot \leq M_{\rm max} \leq 1.7 M_\odot$. The precise value of the maximum mass turns out to be only weakly correlated with the value of the energy density at the assumed transition point in nearly symmetric nuclear matter.

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Maximum mass of neutron stars with a quark core

Massive neutron stars (NS) are expected to possess a quark core. While the hadronic side of the NS equation of state (EOS) can be considered well established, the quark side is quite uncertain. While calculating the EOS of hadronic matter we have used the Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone formalism with realistic two-body and three-body forces, as well as a relativistic mean field model. For quark matter we employ the MIT bag model constraining the bag constant by exploiting the recent experimental results obtained at CERN on the formation of a quark-gluon plasma. We calculate the structure of NS interiors with the EOS comprising both phases, and we find that the NS maximum masses fall in a relatively narrow interval, $1.45 M_\odot \leq M_{\rm max} \leq 1.65 M_\odot$, near the lower limit of the observational range.

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Radial Modes of Neutron Stars with a Quark Core

We make a first calculation of eigenfrequencies of radial pulsations of neutron stars with quark cores in a general relativistic formalism given by Chandrasekhar. The equations of state (EOS) used to estimate such eigenfrequencies have been derived by taking proper care of the hadron-quark phase transition. The hadronic EOS's have been obtained in the framework of the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock and relativistic mean field theories, whereas the quark EOS has been derived within the MIT bag model. We find that the periods of oscillations of neutron stars with a quark core show a kink, which is associated with the presence of a mixed phase region. Also, oscillation periods show significant differences between ordinary neutron stars and neutron stars with dynamical quark phases.

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Formation Of Quark Matter In Neutron Stars

At very large densities and/or temperatures a quark-hadron phase transition is expected to take place. Simulations of QCD on lattice at zero baryon density indicate that the transition occurs at $T_c \sim 150-170$ MeV. The calculations indicate that transition is likely to be second order or a cross over phenomenon. Although the lattice simulations have not given any indication on when the transition occurs at nonzero baryon density, the transition is expected to occur around the densities of few times nuclear matter density. Also, there is a strong reason to believe that the quark matter formed after the phase transition is in colour superconducting phase. The matter densities in the interior of neutron stars are expected to be several times the nuclear matter density and therefore the neutron star cores may possibly consist of quark matter. One then expects that this quark matter is formed during the collapse of supernova. Starting with the assumption that the quark matter, when formed consists of predominantly u and d quarks, we consider the evolution of strange quarks by weak interactions in the present work. The reaction rates and time required to reach the chemical equilibrium are computed here. Our calculations show that the chemical equilibrium is reached in about $10^{-7}$ seconds. Further more during and immediately after the equilibration process enormous amount of energy is released and copious numbers of neutrinos are produced. We show that for reasonable models of nuclear equations of state the amount of energy released could be as high as $10^{53}$ ergs and as many as $10^{58}$ neutrinos may be emitted during the quark matter formation.

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Re-Hardening of Hadron Transverse Mass Spectra in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

We analyze the spectra of pions and protons in heavy-ion collisions at relativistic energies from 2 A GeV to 65+65 A GeV by using a jet-implemented hadron-string cascade model. In this energy region, hadron transverse mass spectra first show softening until SPS energies, and re-hardening may emerge at RHIC energies. Since hadronic matter is expected to show only softening at higher energy densities, this re-hardening of spectra can be interpreted as a good signature of the quark-gluon plasma formation.

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SU(2) Chiral sigma model and the properties of neutron stars

We discuss the {\it SU}(2) chiral sigma model in the context of nuclear matter using a mean field approach at high density. In this model we include a dynamically generated isoscalar vector field and higher-order terms in the scalar field. With the inclusion of these, we reproduce the empirical values of the nuclear matter saturation density, binding energy, and nuclear incompressibility. The value of the incompressibility is chosen according to recently obtained heavy-ion collision data. We then apply the same dynamical model to neutron-rich matter in beta equilibrium, related to neutron star structure. The maximum mass and corresponding radius of stable non-rotating neutron stars are found to be in the observational limit.

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Nuclear equation of state at high density and the properties of neutron stars

We discuss the relativistic nuclear equation of state (EOS) using a relativistic transport model in heavy-ion collisions. From the baryon flow for $Au + Au$ systems at SIS to AGS energies and above we find that the strength of the vector potential has to be reduced moderately at high density or at high relative momenta to describe the flow data at 1-10 A GeV. We use the same dynamical model to calculate the nuclear EOS and then employ this to calculate the gross structure of the neutron star considering the core to be composed of neutrons with an admixture of protons, electrons, muons, sigmas and lambdas at zero temperature. We then discuss these gross properties of neutron stars such as maximum mass and radius in contrast to the observational values.

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Baryon flow from SIS to AGS energies

We analyze the baryon sideward and elliptic flow from SIS (0.25 $\sim$ 2 A GeV) to AGS (2 $\sim 11.0A$GeV) energies for Au + Au collisions in the relativistic transport model RBUU that includes all baryon resonances up to a mass of 2 GeV as well as string degrees of freedom for the higher mass continuum. There are two factors which dominantly determine the baryon flow at these energies: the momentum dependence of the scalar and vector potentials and the resonance-string degrees of freedom. We fix the explicit momentum dependence of the nucleon-meson couplings within the NL3 parameter set by the nucleon optical potential up to 1 GeV of kinetic energy. When assuming the optical potential to vanish identically for $E_{kin} \geq 3.5$ GeV we simultaneously reproduce the sideward flow data of the FOPI, EOS, E895 and E877 collaborations, the elliptic flow data of the EOS, E895 and E877 collaborations, and approximately the rapidity and transverse mass distribution of protons at AGS energies. The gradual change from hadronic to string degrees of freedom with increasing bombarding energy can be viewed as a transition from {\it hadronic} to {\it string} matter, i.e. a dissolution of hadrons.

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The influence of medium effects on the gross structure of hybrid stars

We investigate the influence of medium effects on the structure of hybrid stars, i.e. neutron stars possessing a quark matter core. We found that medium effects reduce the extent of a pure quark matter phase in the interior of a hybrid star significantly in favor of a mixed phase of quark and hadronic matter. Over a wide range of the strong coupling constant - which parameterizes the influence of medium effects - quark matter is able to exist at least in a mixed phase in the interior of neutron stars.

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Baryon flow at SIS energies

We calculate the baryon flow $< P_x/A(y) >$ in the energy range from .25 to $\le 2.5 AGeV$ in a relativistic transport model for $Ni+Ni$ and $Au+Au$ collisions employing various models for the baryon self energies. We find that to describe the flow data of the FOPI Collaboration the strength of the vector potential has to be reduced at high relative momentum or at high density such that the Schrödinger- equivalent potential at normal nuclear density decreases above 1 GeV relative kinetic energy and approaches zero above 2 GeV.

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Radial pulsation frequencies of slowly rotating neutron stars

We study the radial pulsation frequencies of slowly rotating neutron stars in general relativistic formalism using realistic equations of state. It is found that the pulsation frequencies are always an increasing function of rotation rate. The increasing rate of frequency depends on the nature of equations of state.

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Massive compact dwarf stars and C-field

The effect of C-field in high density matter has been studied. We find that the negative energy and negative pressure of the C-field helps in formation of massive compact stable neutron stars of mass $\sim$ 0.5 solar mass which is in the range of 0.01 to 1.0 solar mass of recently observed dwarf stars.

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Strangeness Production in Neutron Stars

Production of strange quarks in neutron stars is investigated in this work. Three cases, one in which the energy and neutrinos produced in the strangeness production reactions are retained in the reaction region, second in which the neutrinos are allowed to escape the reaction region but the energy is retained and the third in which both the energy and neutrinos escape the reaction region are considered. It is shown that the nonleptonic weak process dominates strange quark production while semileptonic weak processes, which produce neutrinos, lead to the cooling if the neutrinos escape the reaction region. It is found that the time required for the saturation of the strangeness fraction is between $10^{-7}$ and $10^{-5}$ sec, with the shorter time corresponding to the first two cases. About 0.2 neutrinos/baryon are emitted during the process in the first two cases where as the neutrino emission is somewhat suppressed in the last case. The average energy of the neutrinos produced in all the three cases is found to be several hundred $MeV$. We also find that a large amount of energy is released during the strangeness production in the first two cases and this leads to the heating of the reaction region. Implications of the neutrino production are investigated.

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Neutrino Emissivity of Dense Stars

The neutrino emissivity of compact stars is investigated in this work. We consider stars consisting of nuclear as well as quark matter for this purpose. Different models are used to calculate the composition of nuclear and quark matter and the neutrino emissivity. Depending on the model under consideration, the neutrino emissivity of nuclear as well as quark matter varies over a wide range. We find that for nuclear matter, the direct URCA processes are allowed for most of the relativistic models without and with strange baryons, whereas for the nonrelativistic models this shows a strong dependence on the type of nuclear interaction employed. When the direct URCA processes are allowed, the neutrino emissivity of hadronic matter is larger than that of the quark matter by several orders of magnitude. We also find that the neutrino emissivity departs from $T^6$ behavior when the temperature is larger than the difference in the Fermi momenta of the particles, participating in the neutrino-producing reactions.

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Effect of magnetic field on the strange star

We study the effect of a magnetic field on the strage quark matter and apply to strange star. We found that the strange star becomes more compact in presence of strong magnetic field.

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SPA+RPA approach to canonical and grandcanonical treatments of nuclear level densities

Using an exactly solvable pairing model Hamiltonian in the static path approximation together with small-amplitude quantal fluctuation corrections in random phase approximation (SPA+RPA), we have analyzed the behaviour of canonical (number projected) and grandcanonical treatments of nuclear level densities as a function of temperature and number of particles. For small particle numbers at a low temperature, we find that though the grandcanonical partition function in SPA+RPA approach is quite close to its exact value, the small errors in its estimation causes significant suppression of level density obtained using number projected partition function. The results are also compared with the smoothed out exact values of level density. Within this model study, it appears that due to saddle point approximation to multiple Laplace-back transform, the grandcanonical treatment of level density at low temperature may be reliable only for relatively large number of particles.

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Masses of Multiquark Droplets

The mass formulae for finite lumps of strange quark matter with $u$, $d$ and $s$ quarks, and non-strange quark matter consisting of $u$ and $d$ quarks are derived in a non-relativistic potential model. The finite-size effects comprising the surface, curvature and even, the Gauss curvature were consistently obtained, which shows a converging trend. It is found that there is a possibility for the formation of metastable strangelets of large mass. The model predicts low charge to mass ratio as the characteristic signature of strange matter in agreement with the relativistic studies. This study also yields an independent estimate for the bag energy density $B$, which is in agreement with the M.I.T bag model value.

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Masses of Multiquark Droplets

The mass formulae for finite lumps of strange quark matter with $u$, $d$ and $s$ quarks, and non-strange quark matter consisting of $u$ and $d$ quarks are derived in a non-relativistic potential model. The finite-size effects comprising the surface, curvature and even, the Gauss curvature were consistently obtained, which shows a converging trend. It is found that there is a possibility for the formation of metastable strangelets of large mass. The model predicts low charge to mass ratio as the characteristic signature of strange matter in agreement with the relativistic studies. This study also yields an independent estimate for the bag energy density $B$, which is in agreement with the M.I.T bag model value.

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