Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: Matter at high density and low temperature is expected to be a color superconductor, which is a degenerate Fermi gas of quarks with a condensate of Cooper pairs near the Fermi surface that induces color Meissner effects. At the highest densities, where the QCD coupling is weak, rigorous calculations are possible, and the ground state is a particularly symmetric state, the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase. The CFL phase is a superfluid, an electromagnetic insulator, and breaks chiral symmetry. The effective theory of the low-energy excitations in the CFL phase is known and can be used, even at more moderate densities, to describe its physical properties. At lower densities the CFL phase may be disfavored by stresses that seek to separate the Fermi surfaces of the different flavors, and comparison with the competing alternative phases, which may break translation and/or rotation invariance, is done using phenomenological models. We review the calculations that underlie these results and then discuss transport properties of several color-superconducting phases and their consequences for signatures of color superconductivity in neutron stars.
Source: Reviews of Modern Physics
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1931030400, QCD, HADRONS AND DENSE MATTER, COLOR SUPERCONDUCTIVITY IN HIGH DENSITY QUARK MATTER, QCD, HADRONS AND DENSE MATTER, G3483132240, COLOR SUPERCONDUCTIVITY IN HIGH DENSITY QUARK MATTER, LABORTORY FOR NUCLEAR SCIENCE (BATES CERN-L3), STUDIES IN QUANTUM FIELD THEORY, STUDIES IN QUANTUM FIELD THEORY, LABORTORY FOR NUCLEAR SCIENCE (BATES CERN-L3), G968870323
OpenAlex ID: W2123127993