We study the implications on compact star properties of a soft nuclear equation of state determined from kaon production at subthreshold energies in heavy-ion collisions. On one hand, we apply these results to study radii and moments of inertia of li
ght neutron stars. Heavy-ion data provides constraints on nuclear matter at densities relevant for those stars and, in particular, to the density dependence of the symmetry energy of nuclear matter. On the other hand, we derive a limit for the highest allowed neutron star mass of three solar masses. For that purpose, we use the information on the nucleon potential obtained from the analysis of the heavy-ion data combined with causality on the nuclear equation of state.
We study charmed baryon resonances that are generated dynamically from a coupled-channel unitary approach that implements heavy-quark symmetry. Some states can already be identified with experimental observations, such as $Lambda_c(2595)$, $Lambda_c(
2660)$, $Sigma_c(2902)$ or $Lambda_c(2941)$, while others need a compilation of more experimental data as well as an extension of the model to include higher order contributions. We also compare our model to previous SU(4) schemes.
We study the properties of $K$ and $bar K$ mesons in nuclear matter at finite temperature from a chiral unitary approach in coupled channels which incorporates the $s$- and p-waves of the kaon-nucleon interaction. The in-medium solution accounts for
Pauli blocking effects, mean-field binding on all the baryons involved, and $pi$ and kaon self-energies. We calculate $K$ and $bar K$ (off-shell) spectral functions and single particle properties. The $bar K$ effective mass gets lowered by about -50 MeV in cold nuclear matter at saturation density and by half this reduction at T=100 MeV. The p-wave contribution to the ${bar K}$ optical potential, due to $Lambda$, $Sigma$ and $Sigma^*$ excitations, becomes significant for momenta larger than 200 MeV/c and reduces the attraction felt by the $bar K$ in the nuclear medium.The $bar K$ spectral function spreads over a wide range of energies, reflecting the melting of the $Lambda (1405)$ resonance and the contribution of $YN^{-1}$ components at finite temperature. In the $KN$ sector, we find that the low-density theorem is a good approximation for the $K$ self-energy close to saturation density due to the absence of resonance-hole excitations. The $K$ potential shows a moderate repulsive behavior, whereas the quasi-particle peak is considerably broadened with increasing density and temperature. We discuss the implications for the decay of the $phi$ meson at SIS/GSI energies as well as in the future FAIR/GSI project.
