Professor Aleksi Vuorinen, Director of the Centre of Excellence in Neutron Star Physics, has been awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant for his project StellarQCD. The five-year project, hosted by the Helsinki Institute of Physics at the University of Helsinki, will investigate the properties of matter at densities far beyond those found in atomic nuclei and explore whether massive neutron stars may contain cores of deconfined quark matter.
The project combines theoretical calculations within thermal field theory with the systematic exploitation of astrophysical observations to improve our understanding of dense Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) matter. A central goal here is to determine how the presence of quark matter could manifest itself in neutron-star observations, including gravitational waves emitted during neutron-star mergers. This makes the project closely aligned with Themes 1 (Neutron-Star Interiors) and 4 (Neutron-Star Mergers) of the CoE.
The ERC Advanced Grant is among the most competitive funding instruments in Europe and supports ambitious, high-risk, high-gain research led by established investigators. The grant demonstrates Finland’s internationally recognised status in neutron-star physics and further strengthens the Centre of Excellence’s activities in the field of dense QCD matter.
Read the University of Helsinki press release here.
Read the ERC press release here.
ERC Advanced Grant awarded for research on quark matter and neutron stars
