  Neutron stars provide unique conditions to study cold dense nuclear matter at
extreme densities. Due to these extreme conditions additional hadronic degrees
of freedom are expected to be populated,including hyperons. This talk will
focus on the influence of hyperons on the neutron star equation ofstate. In
particular the contribution of the lambda hyperon will be discussed, as a first
approximation to describing exotic neutron star equations of state. The system
under consideration is where the strong nuclear force is described by the
exchange of mesons and applying the relativistic mean field theory to study
dense nuclear matter. As expected, the inclusion of the lambda hyperon softens
the neutron star equation of state (EoS). A softer EoS will reduce the maximum
mass attainable by the modeled neutron star with such EoS. While hyperons are
certainly not unexpected in high density systems, but there presence seems to
be contradicted by observations of high mass neutron stars. This contradiction
is known as the "hyperon puzzle". The expected influx of observational data
from massive new radio-telescopes like the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) will
provide observations that can be supported and evolve theoretical models of
nuclear matter. Therefore, the study of hyperonic matter is not only relevant
to nuclear theory, but also locally to Botswana as an African partner country
of the SKA.
