The problem of whether “cold” (T≤10 MeV) subhadronic matter may appear in the central domain of massive neutron stars is discussed. It is shown that nontrivial properties of the QCD vacuum—namely, the existence of a quark—gluon condensate in the hadronic phase and its destruction in the transition to the quark phase—oppose so efficiently the stability of the two-phase structure of a cold star (quark center and hadronic periphery) that the probability of this configuration is very low. The loss of stability at the stage of the phase transition is expected to result in the heating of the central domain up to very high temperatures (T≥100 MeV). Some seemingly enigmatic astrophysical observations and global processes that control the evolution of compact heavy stars may originate from this mechanism.
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