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Trace anomaly as signature of conformality in neutron stars

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arxiv 2207.06753 v2 pith:4USPSUSL submitted 2022-07-14 nucl-th astro-ph.HEhep-ph

Trace anomaly as signature of conformality in neutron stars

classification nucl-th astro-ph.HEhep-ph
keywords anomalytracematterneutronsoundvelocityconformalconformality
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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We discuss an interpretation that a peak in the sound velocity in neutron star matter, as suggested by the observational data, signifies strongly-coupled conformal matter. The normalized trace anomaly is a dimensionless measure of conformality leading to the derivative and the non-derivative contributions to the sound velocity. We find that the peak in the sound velocity is attributed to the derivative contribution from the trace anomaly that steeply approaches the conformal limit. Smooth continuity to the behavior of high-density QCD implies that the matter part of the trace anomaly may be positive definite. We discuss a possible implication of the positivity condition of the trace anomaly on the $M$-$R$ relation of the neutron stars.

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Cited by 15 Pith papers

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