Behavior of relativistic shock waves in nuclear matter

An equation of state of nuclear matter describing the quark–hadron phase transition is derived within a variant of the MIT bag model. This equation of state is analyzed in order to test the criteria of instability and neutral stability of relativistic shock waves. It is shown that Taub adiabats passing through the phase transition region contain segments with an ambiguous representation of the shock-wave discontinuity, which means the possibility of splitting a shock wave with the formation of a combined compression wave. Isentropes passing through the mixed phase region have bends and are not completely convex (in the p – T plane, where T is the generalized specific volume); as a result, shock and combined rarefaction waves can appear. Numerical simulation has confirmed the appearance of these singularities of wave processes in nuclear matter in the region of the phase transition from the hadronic state to the quark–gluon plasma.