Absence of two-flavor color superconductivity in compact stars

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  • 30 March 2002
Abstract
The simplest pattern of color superconductivity involves BCS pairing between up and down quarks. We argue that this ``2SC'' phase, and variants of it, will not arise within a compact star. A macroscopic volume of quark matter must be electrically neutral and must be a color singlet. Satisfying these requirements imposes a significant free energy cost on the 2SC phase, but not on color-flavor locked (CFL) quark matter, in which up, down and strange quarks all pair. As a function of increasing density, therefore, one may see a single phase transition from hadronic matter directly to CFL quark matter. Alternatively, there may be an intervening phase in which the different flavors self-pair, or pair with each other in a non-BCS pattern, such as in a crystalline color superconductor.

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