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We study the role of finite-size effects at the hadron-quark phase transition in a new hybrid equation of state constructed from an ab initio Brückner-Hartree-Fock equation of state with the realistic Bonn-B potential for the hadronic phase and a covariant nonlocal Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model for the quark phase. We construct static hybrid star sequences and find that our model can support stable hybrid stars with an onset of quark matter below 2M and a maximum mass above 2.17M in agreement with recent observations. If the finite-size effects are taken into account the core is composed of pure quark matter. Provided that the quark vector channel interaction is small, and the finite size effects are taken into account, quark matter appears at densities 2-3 times the nuclear saturation density. In that case the proton fraction in the hadronic phase remains below the value required by the onset of the direct URCA process, so that the early onset of quark matter shall affect on the rapid cooling of the star.

We investigate production of φ mesons and Ξ baryons in nucleusnucleus collisions. Reactions on strange particles acting as a catalyser are proposed to interpret the high observed φ yields in HADES experiments as well as the energy dependence of the widths of φ rapidity spectra in collisions at the SPS energies. It is argued that the enhancement of Ξ − yield observed by HADES is even higher than originally reported, if effects of the experimental centrality trigger are taken into account. Cross sections for new hadronic processes that could produce Ξ − are reviewed.

Nonlocal PNJL models allow for a detailed description of chiral quark dynamics with running quark masses and wave function renormalization in accordance with lattice QCD (LQCD) in vacuum. Their generalization to finite temperature T and chemical potential µ allows to reproduce the * Speaker.

We discuss a Nambu–Jona–Lasinio (NJL)-type quantum field theoretical approach to the quark matter equation of state with color superconductivity and construct hybrid star models on this basis. It has recently been demonstrated that with increasing baryon density, the different quark flavors may occur sequentially, starting with down-quarks only, before the second light quark flavor and at highest densities the strange quark flavor also appears. We find that color superconducting phases are favorable over non-superconducting ones, which entails consequences for thermodynamic and transport properties of hybrid star matter. In particular, for NJL-type models no strange quark matter phases can occur in compact star interiors due to mechanical instability against gravitational collapse, unless a sufficiently strong flavor mixing as provided by the Kobayashi–Maskawa–'t Hooft determinant interaction is present in the model. We discuss observational data on mass–radius relationships of compact stars which can put constraints on the properties of the dense matter equation of state.