The inner regions of the most massive compact stellar objects might be occupied by a phase of quarks. Since the observations of the massive pulsars PSR J1614-2230 and PSR $\mathrm{J}0348+0432$ with about two solar masses, the equations of state constructing relativistic stellar models have to be constrained respecting these new limits. We discuss stable hybrid stars, i.e. compact objects with an outer layer composed of nuclear matter and with a core consisting of quark matter (QM). For the outer nuclear layer we utilize a density dependent nuclear equation of state and we use a chiral SU(3) quark-meson model with a vacuum energy pressure to describe the object’s core. The appearance of a disconnected mass-radius branch emerging from the hybrid star branch implies the existence of a third family of compact stars, so-called twin stars. Twin stars did not emerge as the transition pressure has to be relatively small with a large jump in energy density, which could not be satisfied within our approach. This is, among other reasons, due to the fact that the speed of sound in QM has to be relatively high, which can be accomplished by an increase of the repulsive coupling. This increase on the other hand yields transition pressures that are too high for twins stars to appear.

• Received 26 October 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.93.065011