2005/04/30 by G. Lugones, Ignazio Bombaci, I. Bombaci
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Deconfinement #Hadron #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Neutron star #Nuclear physics #Pairing #Particle physics #Phase transition #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum chromodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Quark #Strange matter #Superconductivity #astro-ph #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.72.065021
published as Phys.Rev.D72:065021,2005 · Version to appear in Phys. Rev. D (10 pages, 6 figures)
arxiv created 2005/09/15 · openalex publication_date 2005/09/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
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 (\ensuremathτ\ensuremath∼\ensuremathτweak) transitory colorless-quark-phase that is not in \ensuremathβ-equilibrium. We deduce the equations governing deconfinement when quark pairing is allowed and find the regions of the parameter space (pairing gap \ensuremathΔ versus bag constant B) where deconfinement is possible inside cold neutron stars. We show that for a wide region of (B,\ensuremathΔ) 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 \ensuremathβ-stable hybrid star configurations are known to be possible for a wide region of the (B,\ensuremathΔ)-space, many of these configurations could not form in practice because deconfinement is forbidden, i.e. the here studied non-\ensuremathβ-stable intermediate state cannot be reached.