{
  "abstract": "Statistical evidence for a continuous hadron-quark transition is found in this work. Confronting microscopic descriptions connecting the Parity Doublet Model and the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with observationally constrained non-parametric equations of state, Bayesian model comparison decisively favors a boundary-free crossover over the conventional first-order Maxwell construction ($Δ\\ln\\mathcal{Z} \\sim +7.20$) and fixed-boundary crossover ($Δ\\ln\\mathcal{Z} \\sim +5.16 $). The preferred crossover decouples the intermediate stiffening from the intrinsic stiffness of each phase, allowing both sectors to exhibit physical self-consistency. The chiral-invariant nucleon mass is large, $M_0 = 834^{+28}_{-92}\\text{ MeV}$, as expected for a substantial baryon mass surviving chiral restoration. While the quark sector accommodates a small pairing gap $Δ_{\\rm CFL} = 88^{+83}_{-59}\\text{ MeV}$ consistent with perturbative QCD limits, avoiding the excessively large gaps $Δ_{\\rm CFL} \\gtrsim 200\\text{ MeV}$ required by the other constructions. These results demonstrate that a realistic unified description represents a continuous transition deviating substantially from isolated effective models of hadrons and quarks. Exploring genuine phase boundaries is therefore necessary through the emergence of spinodal instabilities within unified frameworks.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2609.22450",
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Yong-Jia Huang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Bikai Gao"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/10pdj1xxg625b.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2609.22450",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "10pdj1xxg625b",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22450",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "licence_label": "CC0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "astro-ph.HE"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "hep-ph"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "nucl-th"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3103|Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7214015252",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.22450",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-18",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/10pdj1xxg625b.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:23:19Z",
      "native_id": "2609.22450",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22450"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:astro-ph.HE",
      "subfield": "high-energy-astrophysics"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:hep-ph",
      "subfield": "high-energy"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:nucl-th",
      "subfield": "nuclear"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Evidence for a Continuous Hadron--Quark Transition in Cold Dense Matter",
  "title_text": "Evidence for a Continuous Hadron--Quark Transition in Cold Dense Matter",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:23:19Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/10pdj1xxg625b",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}