Super-Dense Stars May Squash Neutrons Into Cubes

[n2doc]

Deep inside the super-dense hearts of exploding stars, gravity may squash neutron particles from spheres into cubes.

The idea could mean that neutron stars, as researchers call the stellar corpses, are denser than anyone expected. It could also question what stops them from collapsing into black holes and out of existence.

“If you take this result purely at face value, it means neutron stars are in trouble. They should collapse into black holes at lower masses,” said theoretical physicist Felipe Jose Llanes-Estrada of Complutense University of Madrid, co-author of a study published Aug. 9 on the prepublication server arXiv.

“But that’s not what we observe. It’s possible there’s an additional repulsive interaction to counter a collapse that we just haven’t thought of yet.”

more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/neutron-star-cubes/

[DetlefK]

1. Problem: Neutrons are not spherical to begin with.

Neutrons consist of 3 quarks: udd, added up in a Spin-1/2-state. Each two quarks are connected to each other by a gluon. And that whole triangle is covered in a cloud of virtual quarks and virtual gluons.

The article itself points out, that the simulation was just done for a single neutron, not one that interacts with neighbours.