Neutron Stars Likely Have Cores Packed with Free Quarks, Study Finds

The cores of these ultradense remnants of large stars may contain 'cold quark matter', an exotic form of matter where individual protons and neutrons cannot exist.

• Recent supercomputer analysis suggests there's an 80 to 90 percent chance that neutron stars have cores packed with free quarks, fundamental subatomic particles usually only found bound together in other particles like protons and neutrons.
• Neutron stars are the remnants of large stars, and their cores are so dense that a sugar cube-sized block of it would weigh around 1 billion tons if brought to Earth.
• If the cores of neutron stars are indeed full of free quarks, they'd be composed of an exotic form of matter known as 'cold quark matter', where individual protons and neutrons cannot exist.
• The research also suggests a below 20% probability that matter within neutron stars experiences a rapid state change from nuclear matter to 'quark matter', which could destabilize neutron stars and potentially trigger a collapse into a black hole.
• The existence of quark-matter cores could be fully confirmed in the future with further analysis, particularly when gravitational wave detectors become sensitive enough to detect ripples in spacetime from colliding neutron stars.

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