Speaker
Description
We investigate cold, high-density matter in the QCD phase diagram within an extended lowest-order constrained variational (LOCV) approach. Neutron stars provide a natural laboratory for this regime, where strongly interacting matter exists at densities that are not directly accessible in terrestrial experiments.
Within this framework, we study the emergence of Λ hyperons in dense neutron star matter and the role of many-body correlations in shaping the equation of state. Our results show that the additional repulsion generated through the correlation functions in our approach moderates the production of Λ hyperons, while the Λ degrees of freedom still soften the equation of state. The balance between these effects allows Λ hyperons to appear in canonical-mass neutron stars without violating current astrophysical constraints.
We also discuss recent results for the Λ single-particle potential, which connects dense-matter calculations to hypernuclear phenomenology. This work provides a microscopic framework for exploring hyperons in cold dense QCD matter and its astrophysical implications.