Dichotomy of Baryons as Quantum Hall Droplets and Skyrmions In Compact-Star Matter

We review the recent exploration of a possible "domain-wall structure" of compressed baryonic matter in massive compact stars in terms of fractional quantum Hall droplets and skyrmions for baryons in medium. The theoretical framework is anchored on an effective nuclear effective field theory that incorporates two hidden symmetries, flavor local symmetry and scale symmetry conjectured to be dual to the gluons and quarks of QCD. It hints at a basically different, hitherto undiscovered structure of nuclear matter at low as well as high densities. Hidden "genuine dilaton (GD)" symmetry and hidden local symmetry (HLS) gauge-equivalent at low density to nonlinear sigma model capturing chiral symmetry, put together in nuclear effective field theory, are seen to play an increasingly important role in providing hadron-quark duality in baryonic matter. This strongly motivates incorporating both symmetries in formulating "first-principles" approaches to nuclear dynamics encompassing from the nuclear matter density to the highest density stable in the Universe.