Equation of State of Cold Quark Matter to O (αs3 lnαs)

Abstract

Accurately understanding the equation of state (EOS) of high-density, zero-temperature quark matter plays an essential role in constraining the behavior of dense strongly interacting matter inside the cores of neutron stars. In this Letter, we study the weak-coupling expansion of the EOS of cold quark matter and derive the complete, gauge-invariant contributions from the long-wavelength, dynamically screened gluonic sector at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO) in the strong coupling constant αs. This elevates the EOS result to the O(αs3lnαs) level, leaving only one unknown constant from the unscreened sector at N3LO, and places it on par with its high-temperature counterpart from 2003.