Soft Interactions in Cold Quark Matter

Accurate knowledge of the thermodynamic properties of zero-temperature, high-density quark matter plays an integral role in attempts to constrain the behavior of the dense QCD matter found inside neutron-star cores, irrespective of the phase realized inside the stars. In this Letter, we consider the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2021-10, Vol.127 (16), p.162003-162003, Article 162003
Main Authors: Gorda, Tyler, Kurkela, Aleksi, Paatelainen, Risto, Säppi, Saga, Vuorinen, Aleksi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Density
Equations of state
High temperature
Quarks
Thermodynamic properties
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Summary:Accurate knowledge of the thermodynamic properties of zero-temperature, high-density quark matter plays an integral role in attempts to constrain the behavior of the dense QCD matter found inside neutron-star cores, irrespective of the phase realized inside the stars. In this Letter, we consider the weak-coupling expansion of the dense QCD equation of state and compute the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-order contribution arising from the non-Abelian interactions among long-wavelength, dynamically screened gluonic fields. Accounting for these interactions requires an all-loop resummation, which can be performed using hard-thermal-loop (HTL) kinematic approximations. Concretely, we perform a full two-loop computation using the HTL effective theory, valid for the long-wavelength, or soft, modes. We find that the soft sector is well behaved within cold quark matter, contrary to the case encountered at high temperatures, and find that the new contribution decreases the renormalization-scale dependence of the equation of state at high density.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.162003