Towards a new quark-nuclear matter EoS for applications in astrophysics and heavy-ion collisions

The aim of our work is to develop a unified equation of state (EoS) for nuclear and quark matter for a wide range in temperature, density and isospin so that it becomes applicable for heavy-ion collisions as well as for the astrophysics of neutron stars, their mergers and supernova explosions. As a first step, we use improved EoS for the hadronic and quark matter phases and join them via Maxwell construction. We discuss the limitations of a 2-phase description and outline steps beyond it, towards the formulation of a unified quark-nuclear matter EoS on a more fundamental level by a cluster virial expansion.