Gluon condensate in color superconductivity

In color superconductor the gluon condensate drops down at moderate density but goes up at high density and can even exceed its vacuum value when the density is high enough.     

Gluon condensate in color superconductivity

In color superconductor the gluon condensate drops down at moderate density but goes up at high density and can even exceed its vacuum value when the density is high enough.     

Chromomagnetic catalysis of color superconductivity

The effect of an external chromomagnetic field on the phase structure of the extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with two quark flavors is examined. It is shown that, depending on the relationship between the quark coupling constants in the q? and qq channels, chromomagnetic fields of certain types induce spontaneous breaking of chiral, color, or both symmetries simultaneously.     

Pulsar kicks via spin-1 color superconductivity

We propose a new neutrino propulsion mechanism for neutron stars which can lead to strong velocity kicks, needed to explain the observed bimodal velocity distribution of pulsars. The spatial asymmetry in the neutrino emission is naturally provided by a stellar core containing spin-1 color-superconducting quark matter in the A phase. The neutrino propulsion mechanism switches on when the stellar core temperature drops below the transition temperature of this phase.     

The glueball sector of two-flavor color superconductivity

We construct the effective Lagrangian describing the light glueballs associated with the unbroken and confining SU_c(2) color subgroup for the 2 flavor superconductive phase of QCD. This Lagrangian constitutes a key ingredient for understanding the nonperturbative physics of 2 flavor color superconductivity. We estimate the two photon decay process of the light glueballs using the saturation of the electromagnetic trace anomaly at the effective Lagrangian level. The present results are particularly relevant to our model of Gamma Ray Bursts based on color superconductivity in Quark Stars (R. Ouyed and F. Sannino, astro-ph/0103022).     

QCD at finite density and color superconductivity

The paper contains a brief review of recent applications of many-body theory to quark matter. We discuss the progress in theory of dense quark matter during the last two years, especially color superconductivity. We emphasize that there are two basic dynamical reasons for it: short-range forces induced by instantons and long-range ones mediated by exchanges of magnetic gluons. For quark matter which is supposed to be found in neutron stars, both lead to superconducting gaps on the order of 100 MeV. The most surprising facts are the rather impressive richness of different phases and their robustness in respect to variation of the fundamental interaction.     

Magnetic fields boosted by gluon vortices in color superconductivity

We investigate the effects of an external magnetic field in the gluon dynamics of a color superconductor with three massless quark flavors. In the framework of gluon mean-field theory at asymptotic densities, we show that the long-range component H[over ] of the external magnetic field that penetrates the color-flavor locked phase produces an instability when its strength becomes larger than the Meissner mass of the charged gluons. As a consequence, the magnetic field causes the formation of a vortex state characterized by the condensation of charged gluons and the creation of magnetic flux tubes. Inside the flux tubes, the magnetic field is stronger than the applied one. This antiscreening effect is connected to the anomalous magnetic moment of the gluon field. We suggest how this same mechanism could serve to remove the chromomagnetic instabilities existing in gapless color superconductivity.     

Gauge field fluctuations and first-order phase transition in color superconductivity

We study the gauge field fluctuations in dense quark matter and determine the temperature of the induced first-order phase transition to the color-superconducting phase in weak coupling. We find that the local approximation of the coupling between the gauge potential and the order parameter, employed in the Ginzburg-Landau theory, has to be modified by restoring the full momentum dependence of the polarization function of gluons in the superconducting phase.     

Dyson-Schwinger approach to color superconductivity at finite temperature and density

We investigate the phases of dense QCD matter at finite temperature with Dyson-Schwinger equations for the quark propagator for N _f = 2 + 1 flavors. For the gluon propagator we take a fit to quenched lattice data and add quark-loop effects perturbatively in a hard-thermal-loop-hard-dense-loop approximation. We consider 2SC and CFL-like pairing with chiral up and down quarks and massive strange quarks and present results for the condensates and the phase diagram. We find a dominant CFL phase at chemical potentials larger than 500-600MeV. At lower values of the chemical potential we find a 2SC phase, which also exists in a small band at higher temperatures for larger chemical potentials. With values of 20–30 MeV, the critical temperatures to the normal phase turn out to be quite small.     

Gapless color-flavor-locked quark matter

In neutral cold quark matter that is so dense that the strange quark mass Ms is unimportant, all three quark flavors pair in a color-flavor locked (CFL) pattern, and all nine fermionic quasiparticles have a gap Delta (or 2Delta). We argue that, as the density decreases (or Ms increases), there is a quantum phase transition (at M(2s/mu approximately 2Delta) to a new "gapless CFL phase" in which only seven quasiparticles have a gap. There is still an unbroken U(1)(Q) gluon/photon, but, unlike CFL, gapless CFL is a Q conductor with gapless (charged) quasiquarks and a nonzero electron density at zero temperature, so its low energy effective theory and astrophysical properties are qualitatively new. At the transition, the dispersion relations of both gapless quasiparticles are quadratic, but for larger M2s/mu, one becomes conventionally linear while the other remains quadratic, up to tiny corrections.     

Angular momentum mixing in single flavor color superconductivity with transverse pairing

Because of the equal strength of the pairing potential mediated by one-gluon exchange for all partial waves to the leading order QCD running coupling constant and the nonlinearity of the gap equation, the non-spherical pairing in single flavor color superconductivity (CSC) cannot be restricted in a single non-s-wave channel and the mixing among different angular momenta will occur. In this paper, we examine the angular momentum mixing in single flavor CSC of massless quarks with transverse pairing, in which the pairing quarks have opposite helicity. We find that the free energy of all non-spherical pairing states are lowered by angular momentum mixing compared with that contain p-wave only, though the amount of the free energy drop is numerically small. Consequently the most stable pairing state in the ultra-relativistic limit remains the spherical color-spin-locked state (CSL).     

Coexistence of color superconductivity and chiral symmetry breaking within the NJL model

The phase diagram for quark matter is investigated within a simple Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model without vector correlations. It is found that the phase structure in the temperature-density plane depends sensitively on the parametrization of the model. We present two schemes of parametrization of the model where, within the first one, a first-order phase transition from a phase with broken chiral symmetry to a color superconducting phase for temperatures below the triple point at T _t = 55 MeV occurs, whereas for the second one a second-order phase transition for temperatures below T _t = 7 MeV is found. In the latter case, there is also a coexistence phase of broken chiral symmetry with color superconductivity, which is a new finding within this class of models. Possible consequences for the phenomenology of the QCD phase transition at high baryon densities are discussed. Received: 3 January 2003 / Accepted: 21 February 2003 / Published online: 24 April 2003     

Quark condensation, induced symmetry breaking and color superconductivity at high density

The phase structure of hadronic matter at high density relevant to the physics of compact stars and relativistic heavy-ion collisions is studied in a low-energy effective quark theory. The relevant phases that figure are (1) chiral condensation, (2) diquark color condensation (color superconductivity) and (3) induced Lorentz-symmetry breaking (“ISB”). For a reasonable strength for the effective four-Fermi current–current interaction implied by the low-energy effective quark theory for systems with a Fermi surface we find that the “ISB” phase sets in together with chiral symmetry restoration (with the vanishing quark condensate) at a moderate density while color superconductivity associated with scalar diquark condensation is pushed up to an asymptotic density. Consequently, color superconductivity seems rather unlikely in heavy-ion collisions although it may play a role in compact stars. Lack of confinement in the model makes the result of this analysis only qualitative but the hierarchy of the transitions we find seems to be quite robust.     

Probing strange stars and color superconductivity by r-mode instabilities in millisecond pulsars

An astrophysically realistic model of wave dynamics in black-hole spacetimes must involve a nonspherical background geometry with angular momentum. We consider the evolution of gravitational (and electromagnetic) perturbations in rotating Kerr spacetimes. We show that a rotating Kerr black hole becomes "bald" slower than the corresponding spherically symmetric Schwarzschild black hole. Moreover, our results turn over the traditional belief (which has been widely accepted during the last three decades) that the late-time tail of gravitational collapse is universal. Our results are also of importance both to the study of the no-hair conjecture and the mass-inflation scenario (stability of Cauchy horizons).     

Gapless magnetic and quasiparticle excitations due to the coexistence of antiferromagnetism and superconductivity in CeRhIn5: a study of 115In NQR under pressure

We report systematic measurements of ac susceptibility, nuclear-quadrupole-resonance spectrum, and nuclear-spin-lattice-relaxation time (T1) on the pressure (P)-induced heavy-fermion superconductor CeRhIn5. The temperature (T) dependence of 1/T(1) at P=1.6 GPa has revealed that antiferromagnetism (AFM) and superconductivity (SC) coexist microscopically, exhibiting the respective transition at T(N)=2.8 K and T(MF)(c)=0.9 K. It is demonstrated that SC does not yield any trace of gap opening in low-lying excitations below T(onset)(c)=2 K, but T(MF)(c)=0.9 K, followed by a T(1)T=const law. These results point to the unconventional characteristics of SC coexisting with AFM. We highlight that both of the results deserve theoretical work on the gapless nature in the low-lying excitation spectrum due to the coexistence of AFM and SC and the lack of the mean-field regime below T(onset)(c)=2 K.     

Gapless excitations in strongly fluctuating superconducting wires

We study the low-temperature tunneling density of states of thin wires where superconductivity is destroyed through quantum phase-slip proliferation. Although this regime is believed to behave as an insulator, we show that for a large temperature range this phase is characterized by a conductivity falling off at most linearly with temperature, and has a gapless excitation spectrum. This novel conducting phase results from electron-electron interaction induced pair breaking. Also, it may help clarify the low-temperature metallic features found in films and wires whose bulk realization is superconducting.