2025/01/03 by Liam Brodie, Robert D. Pisarski, Brodie, Liam +1 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Superconducting Materials and Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2501.02055
openalex publication_date 2025/01/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
In confined hadronic matter, the spontaneous breaking and restoration of chiral symmetry can be described by considering nucleons, N+(939), and excited states of opposite parity, N-(1535). In a cold, dense hadronic phase where chiral symmetry remains spontaneously broken, direct Urca decay processes involving the N- are possible, e.g. N- → N+ + e- + νe. We show that at low temperature and moderate densities, because the N- is much heavier than the N+, such cooling dominates over standard N+ direct Urca processes. This provides a strong astrophysical signature of the pattern of chiral symmetry restoration in neutron stars.