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Abstract

We study the equation of state of symmetric nuclear matter at zero
temperature over a wide range of densities using two complementary theoretical
approaches. At low densities up to twice nuclear saturation density, we compute
the energy per particle based on modern nucleon-nucleon and three-nucleon
interactions derived within chiral effective field theory. For higher densities
we derive for the first time constraints in a Fierz-complete setting directly
based on quantum chromodynamics using functional renormalization group
techniques. We find remarkable consistency of the results obtained from both
approaches as they come together in density and the natural emergence of a
maximum in the speed of sound $c_S$ at supranuclear densities with a value
beyond the asymptotic $c_S^2 = 1/3$. The presence of a maximum appears tightly
connected to the formation of a diquark gap.