The symmetry energy in nucleon and quark matter

The symmetry energy characterizes the isospin dependent part of the equation of state of isospin asymmetric strong interaction matter and it plays a critical role in many issues of nuclear physics and astrophysics. In this talk, we briefly review the current status on the determination of the symmetry energy in nucleon (nuclear) and quark matter. For nuclear matter, while the subsaturation density behaviors of the symmetry energy are relatively well-determined and significant progress has been made on the symmetry energy around saturation density, the determination of the suprasaturation density behaviors of the symmetry energy remains a big challenge. For quark matter, which is expected to appear in dense matter at high baryon densities, we briefly review the recent work about the effects of quark matter symmetry energy on the properties of quark stars and the implication of possible existence of heavy quark stars on quark matter symmetry energy. The results indicate that the $u$ and $d$ quarks could feel very different interactions in isospin asymmetric quark matter, which may have important implications on the isospin effects of partonic dynamics in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.