2007/03/31 by Efrain J. Ferrer, Vivian de la Incera · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Color superconductivity #Condensed matter physics #Diquark #Magnetic field #Paramagnetism #Particle physics #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum chromodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Stars #Strange matter #Superconducting Materials and Applications #Superconductivity #astro-ph #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.76.045011
published as Phys.Rev.D76:045011,2007 · Version to appear in PRD
arxiv created 2007/07/02 · openalex publication_date 2007/08/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The best natural candidates for the realization of color superconductivity are quark stars---not yet confirmed by observation---and the extremely dense cores of compact stars, many of which have very large magnetic fields. To reliably predict astrophysical signatures of color superconductivity, a better understanding of the role of the star's magnetic field in the color-superconducting phase that is realized in the core is required. This paper is an initial step in that direction. The field scales at which the different magnetic phases of a color superconductor with three quark flavors can be realized are investigated. Going from weak to strong fields, the system first undergoes a symmetry transmutation from a color-flavor-locked (CFL) phase to a magnetic-CFL (MCFL) phase, and then a phase transition from the MCFL phase to the paramagnetic-CFL (PCFL) phase. The low-energy effective theory for the excitations of the diquark condensate in the presence of a magnetic field is derived using a covariant representation that takes into account all the Lorentz structures contributing at low energy. The field-induced masses of the charged mesons and the threshold field at which the CFL\ensuremath→ MCFL symmetry transmutation occurs are obtained in the framework of this low-energy effective theory. The relevance of the different magnetic phases for the physics of compact stars is discussed.