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Quarkyonic quark-meson coupling model for nuclear and neutron matter

Koichi Saito*

Tsuyoshi Miyatsu† and Myung-Ki Cheoun‡

  • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tokyo University of Science, Noda 278-8510, Japan

  • *Contact author: koichi.saito@rs.tus.ac.jp
  • †Contact author: tsuyoshi.miyatsu@ssu.ac.kr
  • ‡Contact author: cheoun@ssu.ac.kr
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Phys. Rev. C 114, 045201 – Published 1 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/s71s-85r5

Abstract

We unite the dual quarkyonic model with the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model to construct a novel nuclear model based on the quark degrees of freedom, which can cover a wide range of nuclear densities, from low density to the crossover region. In the model, the relativistic, Gaussian quark wavefunction is used to describe the nucleon structure. We first evaluate the energy density, chemical potential, pressure, and sound velocity within the ideal Fermi gas picture. In this case, those physical quantities are discontinuous or divergent at the quark saturation density, where the quarkyonic phase emerges. To remove such singular behavior, we next introduce an infrared regulator, and combine the dual quarkyonic model and the QMC model to include the nuclear interaction, which we call the quarkyonic quark-meson coupling (QQMC) model. In this model, the quark saturation density depends strongly on the nucleon size. For example, when rp=0.6(0.8) fm, where rp is the root-mean-square radius of the proton, the quark saturation density is about 3.6(1.5)×ρ0 in symmetric nuclear matter, where ρ0 is the nuclear saturation density. Furthermore, the nuclear interaction plays an important role in considering physical quantities quantitatively. In fact, the QQMC model can produce sound velocity which is consistent with that inferred from the observed data of several neutron stars. Furthermore, pressure in symmetric or pure neutron matter deduced from the experiments of heavy-ion collisions at high energy can be explained by the QQMC model as well. We discuss in detail the formulation for the QQMC model and the physical quantities calculated by the model.

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Phys. Rev. C 114, 045201– Published 1 October, 2026
  • Received 5 December 2025
  • Revised 25 March 2026
  • Accepted 28 July 2026
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