A simple semiempirical equation of state for cold nuclear matter

On the basis of gross properties of nuclei, a simple semiempirical equation of state is developed for cold hadronic matter composed of light quarks of two flavors. The source of binding energy in the model is the decreasing asymmetry between the number of up and down quarks in extended regions of overlapping nucleons. The resulting incompressibility of symmetric nuclear matter at equilibrium density is K = 324 MeV. The incompressibility decreases rapidly with decreasing density but increases only slowly with increasing density until homogenous quark matter is reached at a density just above three times ordinary nuclear matter density. (C) 2002 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".