Colored condensates deep inside neutron stars

It is demonstrated how in the absence of solutions for QCD under conditions deep inside compact stars an equation of state can be obtained within a model that is built on the basic symmetries of the QCD Lagrangian, in particular chiral symmetry and color symmetry. While in the vacuum the chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken, it gets restored at high densities. Color symmetry, however, gets broken simultaneously by the formation of colorful diquark condensates. It is shown that a strong diquark condensate in cold dense quark matter is essential for supporting the possibility that such states could exist in the recently observed pulsars with masses of 2 $M_\odot$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of "Wigner 111 -- Colourful \& Deep", Budapest, Hungary, 11-13 November 201

X(3872) as a D-D* molecule bound by quark exchange forces

The Bethe-Salpeter equation for the T-Matrix of D-D* scattering is solved with a meson-meson potential that results from 2nd order Born approximation of quark exchange processes. This potential turns out to be complex and energy dependent due to the pole contribution from the coupling to the intermediate J/psi-rho meson pair propagator. As a consequence, a bound state with a mass close to 3.872 GeV occurs in the J/psi-rho continuum. This result suggests that quark exchange forces may provide the solution to the puzzling question for the origin of the interaction which leads to a binding of D and D* mesons in the X(3872) state.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, contribution to the Proceedings of the 28th Max-Born-Symposium on "Three days on quarkyonic island", Wroclaw, Poland, May 19-21, 201

Mass-radius constraints for compact stars and a critical endpoint

We present two types of models for hybrid compact stars composed of a quark core and a hadronic mantle with an abrupt first order phase transition at the interface which are in accordance with the latest astrophysical measurements of two 2 M_sun pulsars. While the first is a schematic one, the second one is based on a QCD motivated nonlocal PNJL model with density-dependent vector coupling strength. Both models support the possibility of so called twin compact stars which have the same mass but different radius and internal structure at high mass (~2 M_sun), provided they exhibit a large jump \Delta \epsilon in the energy density of the first order phase transition fulfilling \Delta \epsilon/\epsilon_crit > 0.6. We conclude that the measurement of high-mass twin stars would support the existence of a first order phase transition in symmetric matter at zero temperature entailing the existence of a critical end point in the QCD phase diagram.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, prepared for the Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on "Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement",March 11 to 15, 2013, Napa, California, US