Neutron Stars, the Nuclear Equation of State and QCD
Prof. Jürgen Schaffner-Bielich (Universität Frankfurt)

Observations of isolated neutron stars or rotation-powered neutron stars, pulsars, could provide tell-tale signatures of the properties of nuclear matter at high densities.
The existence of massive pulsars with two solar masses gives strong constraints on the high-density nuclear equation of state and on the possible existence of quark matter in the core of neutron stars.
The implications of the recent astrophysical observations will be discussed and confronted with the nuclear equation of state as extracted from nuclear physics, data from heavy-ion experiments at relativistic bombarding energies and the underlying theory of strong interactions, quantum chromodynamics, at high densities.