Eur. Phys. J. A (2006) 30: 455-460
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2006-10142-5

Nuclear Astrophysics

Phase transition to color-flavor-locked matter and condensation of Goldstone bosons in neutron star matter

¹ Department of Technical Physics and MOE Laboratory of Heavy-Ion Physics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, PRC
² Center of Theoretical Nuclear Physics, National Laboratory of Heavy-Ion Accelerator, 730000, Lanzhou, PRC
³ Institute of Modern Physics, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000, Lanzhou, PRC
⁴ Department of Physics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, PRC

^* e-mail: jianfagu@gmail.com

Received: 11 August 2006
Accepted: 27 October 2006
Published online: 27 November 2006

Abstract

Deconfinement phase transition and condensation of Goldstone bosons in neutron star matter are investigated in a chiral hadronic model (also referred as to the FST model) for the hadronic phase (HP) and in the color-flavor-locked (CFL) quark model for the deconfined quark phase. It is shown that the hadronic-CFL mixed phase (MP) exists in the center of neutron stars with a small bag constant, while the CFL quark matter cannot appear in neutron stars when a large bag constant is taken. Color superconductivity softens the equation of state (EOS) and decreases the maximum mass of neutron stars compared with the unpaired quark matter. The K⁰ condensation in the CFL phase has no remarkable contribution to the EOS and properties of neutron star matter. The EOS and the properties of neutron star matter are sensitive to the bag constant B, the strange quark mass m_s and the color superconducting gap Δ. Increasing B and m_s or decreasing Δ can stiffen the EOS which results in the larger maximum masses of neutron stars.