Speaker
Description
Description of nuclear matter in the core of neutron stars eludes the main tools of investigation of QCD, such as perturbation theory and the lattice formulation of the theory. Recently, the application of the holographic paradigm (both via top-down and bottom-up models) to this task has led to many encouraging results, both qualitatively and quantitatively. In this talk, I will present our approach to the description of neutron star cores, relying on a simple model of the (double) hard-wall type: I will discuss results concerning the nature of homogeneous nuclear matter at high density emerging from the model including a quarkyonic phase, the mass-radius relation for neutron stars, as well as the rather stiff equation of state we have found.
I will show how, despite the very simple model employed, for an appropriate calibration we were able to obtain neutron stars that only slightly fall short of the observational bounds on radius and tidal deformability. Finally, I will show results from simulations of mergers of neutron star pairs, including the characteristic gravitational waves signal and its frequency spectrum.
