We discuss the “constant speed of sound” (CSS) parametrization of the equation of state of high-density matter and its application to the field correlator method (FCM) model of quark matter. We show how observational constraints on the maximum mass and typical radius of neutron stars are expressed as constraints on the CSS parameters. We find that the observation of a $2{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ star already severely constrains the CSS parameters, and is particularly difficult to accommodate if the squared speed of sound in the high-density phase is assumed to be around $1/3$ or less. We show that the FCM equation of state can be accurately represented by the CSS parametrization, which assumes a sharp transition to a high-density phase with density-independent speed of sound. We display the mapping between the FCM and CSS parameters, and see that FCM only allows equations of state in a restricted subspace of the CSS parameters.

• Received 20 February 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.083002