Chiral symmetry restoration and hyperon suppression in neutron stars
Phys. Rev. D 113, 083012 – Published 6 April, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vb5r-vdm7
Abstract
The “hyperon puzzle” remains a fundamental challenge in nuclear astrophysics. We investigate hyperon emergence in neutron star matter using the parity doublet model with chiral representation . This framework naturally incorporates chiral symmetry restoration and provides a systematic description of baryon masses in dense matter through the interplay between the chiral condensate and the chiral invariant mass . We find that the hyperon onset density exhibits strong sensitivity to : for , hyperons first appear at , while for , hyperons emerge only above . This delayed onset arises from the weakened density dependence of baryon masses at larger values. When the hyperon onset density exceeds the expected quark-hadron transition range (), matter undergoes deconfinement before hyperons populate, avoiding the equation of state softening while maintaining consistency with massive neutron star observations. Our results demonstrate that chiral dynamics provides a natural resolution to the hyperon puzzle without requiring ad hoc repulsive hyperon interactions.