Color superconductivity in quark stars: Powering gamma ray bursts

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  • 1 March 2001
Abstract
A two flavors color superconductive phase has been suggested as a plausible state of quark matter at high density. Here, we explore the possibility for such a state to exist at the surface of a quark star where temperatures below T_{c} (the critical temperature above which color superconductivity cannot exist) are first achieved following neutrino cooling. We develop a model which can quantitatively account for many of the observed features of gamma ray bursts. Among them, (i) the episodic activity of the engine (multiple and random shell emission); (ii) the two distinct categories of the bursts (\sim 1 s and \sim 16 s duration); (iii) shell-shell collision dynamics and energetics (0 < \Gamma_{shell} < 2\times 10^{5} and \rho_{shell}\propto \Gamma_{shell}^{-2}); (iv) a peak duration vs energy dependence t_{p}\propto E_{p}^{-0.5}, and (v) gamma ray burst energy range, 8\times 10^{49} {\rm ergs} < E_{GRB} < 1.6\times 10^{54} {\rm ergs}. Our model, constrained by BATSE observations, favors T_{c}\simeq 15 MeV. We conclude that the superconductive gap is larger than 15 MeV for densites few times nuclear matter density. We establish a possible link between gamma ray bursts and color superconductivity. We show that bursts data can be used as a new tool to (a) derive the Mass-Radius plane for quark stars and (b) map the Quantum-Chromodynamics phase diagram in a regime impossible with current earth-based facilities.

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