In fact, in the particular and unusual case of quark stars, understanding quarks could have a more direct impact. They also don’t know either the masses or the radii of most neutron stars in the universe. For neutron stars, this is the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equation: it is very complex but it assigns a probability to the presence of quarks within neutron stars. Quarks are further held together by another set of particles called gluons. In these experiments, a state of matter called a quark-gluon plasma exists for a brief moment; the ‘plasma’ means the quarks are independent.

Source: The Hindu May 02, 2024 13:33 UTC