HOLOTUBE: Applying gauge/gravity duality to neutron stars

Gauge/gravity duality can be used to study QCD at high densities and low temperatures where many other theoretical tools do not work and uncertainties are therefore large. I will review recent progress on this topic, including modeling of dense nuclear and quark matter phases, which appear in neutron star cores and in neutron star mergers. I show that combining predictions from gauge/gravity with state-of-the-art models of nuclear matter leads to nontrivial constraints for the QCD equation of state. I also present predictions for transport in dense quark matter, and discuss applications of the holographic equation of state to isolated (static and rotating) neutron stars, as well as to neutron star mergers.