Formation of hybrid stars from metastable hadronic stars

Abstract: We study the consequences of quark matter nucleation in cold hadronic matter employing three relativistic-mean-field (RMF) models to describe the hadronic phase and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model for the quark one. We explore the effect of a vector interaction in the NJL Lagrangian and of a phenomenological bag constant on neutron stars metastability. We delineate the region of parameters of the quark phase that allow for the formation of stable hybrid stars with mass compatible with the almost $2 \ M_\odot$ pulsars PSR J1614-2230 ($1.97 \pm 0.04 M_\odot$) and PSR J0348+0432 ($2.01 \pm 0.04 M_\odot$). It is shown, however, that not all hybrid star configurations with $\sim 2 \,M_\odot$ are populated after nucleation.