Modern compact star observations and the quark matter equation of state

Abstract We present a hybrid equation of state (EoS) for dense matter that satisfies phenomenological constraints from modern compact star (CS) observations which indicate high maximum masses ( M ∼ 2 M ⊙ ) and large radii ( R > 12 km ). The corresponding isospin symmetric EoS is consistent with flow data analyses of heavy-ion collisions and a deconfinement transition at ∼ 0.55 fm −3 . The quark matter phase is described by a 3-flavor Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model that accounts for scalar diquark condensation and vector meson interactions while the nuclear matter phase is obtained within the Dirac–Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (DBHF) approach using the Bonn-A potential. We demonstrate that both pure neutron stars and neutron stars with quark matter cores are consistent with modern CS observations. Hybrid star configurations with a CFL quark core are unstable within the present model.