Deconfinement and color superconductivity in cold neutron stars

Journal Article · Thu Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 2005 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.72.065021· OSTI ID:20713580

Lugones, G; Bombaci, I ^[1]

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1. Dipartimento di Fisica 'Enrico Fermi' Universita di Pisa and INFN Sezione di Pisa, Largo Bruno Pontecorvo 3, 56127 Pisa (Italy)

We study the deconfinement transition of hadronic matter into quark matter in neutron star conditions in the light of color superconductivity. Deconfinement is considered to be a first order phase transition that conserves color and flavor. It gives a short-lived ({tau}{approx}{tau}{sub weak}) transitory colorless-quark-phase that is not in {beta}-equilibrium. We deduce the equations governing deconfinement when quark pairing is allowed and find the regions of the parameter space (pairing gap {delta} versus bag constant B) where deconfinement is possible inside cold neutron stars. We show that for a wide region of (B,{delta}) a pairing pattern is reachable within a strong interaction timescale, and the resulting '2SC-like' phase is preferred energetically to the unpaired phase. We also show that although {beta}-stable hybrid star configurations are known to be possible for a wide region of the (B,{delta})-space, many of these configurations could not form in practice because deconfinement is forbidden, i.e. the here studied non-{beta}-stable intermediate state cannot be reached.

• OSTI ID: 20713580
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 72; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
BAG MODEL
COLD NEUTRONS
COLOR MODEL
FLAVOR MODEL
INTERMEDIATE STATE
NEUTRON STARS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
QUARK MATTER
QUARKS
STRONG INTERACTIONS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY