Aleksi Vuorinen

Cold quark matter

We perform an O({alpha}{sub s}{sup 2}) perturbative calculation of the equation of state of cold but dense QCD matter with two massless and one massive quark flavor, finding that perturbation theory converges reasonably well for quark chemical potentials above 1 GeV. Using a running coupling constant and strange quark mass, and allowing for further nonperturbative effects, our results point to a narrow range where absolutely stable strange quark matter may exist. Absent stable strange quark matter, our findings suggest that quark matter in (slowly rotating) compact star cores becomes confined to hadrons only slightly above the density of atomic nuclei. Finally, we show that equations of state including quark matter lead to hybrid star masses up to M{approx}2M{sub {center_dot},} in agreement with current observations. For strange stars, we find maximal masses of M{approx}2.75M{sub {center_dot}}and conclude that confirmed observations of compact stars with M>2M{sub {center_dot}}would strongly favor the existence of stable strange quark matter.

Pressure of QCD at finite temperatures and chemical potentials

We compute the perturbative expansion of the pressure of hot QCD to order g(6)ln g in the presence of finite quark chemical potentials. In this process we evaluate all two- and three-loop vacuum diagrams of the theory at arbitrary T and mu and then use these results to analytically verify the outcome of an old order g(4) calculation of Freedman and McLerran for the zero-temperature pressure. The results for the pressure and the different quark number susceptibilities at high T are compared with recent lattice simulations showing excellent agreement especially for the chemical potential dependent part of the pressure.

Quark number susceptibilities of hot QCD up to g(6) ln g

The pressure of hot QCD has recently been determined to the last perturbatively computable order

Constraining Neutron Star Matter with Quantum Chromodynamics

{g}^{6}\mathrm{ln}g

INTERACTING QUARK MATTER EQUATION OF STATE FOR COMPACT STARS

by Kajantie et al. using three-dimensional effective theories. A similar method is applied here to the pressure in the presence of small but non-vanishing quark chemical potentials, and the result is used to derive the quark number susceptibilities in the limit

Probing the pattern of holographic thermalization with photons

\ensuremath{\mu}=0.

Z(3)-symmetric effective theory for SU(3) Yang-Mills theory at high temperature

The diagonal quark number susceptibility of QCD with

Center-symmetric effective theory for high-temperature SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

{n}_{f}

Holographic dilepton production in a thermalizing plasma

flavors of massless quarks is evaluated to order

Heavy flavor diffusion in weakly coupled Script N = 4 Super Yang-Mills theory

{g}^{6}\mathrm{ln}g