On thermal nucleation of quark matter in compact stars

Abstract

The possibility of a hadron-quark phase transition in extreme astrophysical phenomena such as the collapse of a supernova is not discarded by the modern knowledge of the high-energy nuclear and quark-matter equations of state. Both the density and the temperature attainable in such extreme processes are possibly high enough to trigger a chiral phase transition. However, the time scales involved are an important issue. Even if the physical conditions for the phase transition are favorable (for a system in equilibrium), there may not be enough time for the dynamical process of phase conversion to be completed. We analyze the relevant time scales for the phase conversion via thermal nucleation of bubbles of quark matter and compare them to the typical astrophysical time scale, in order to verify the feasibility of the scenario of hadron-quark phase conversion during, for example, the core-collapse of a supernova.

6 pages, 4 figures, talk given at the International Conference SQM2009, Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sep.27-Oct.2, 2009

References in corpus (3)

• Signals of the QCD phase transition in core-collapse supernovae
• Tables of Hyperonic Matter Equation of State for Core-Collapse Supernovae
• The conversion of Neutron star to Strange star : A two step process

Cited by in corpus (15)

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• The Surface Tension of Quark Matter in a Geometrical Approach
• Surface tension of dense matter at the chiral phase transition
• The Surface Tension of Magnetized Quark Matter
• Formation of hybrid stars from metastable hadronic stars
• Nucleating quark droplets in the core of magnetars
• Interface effects of strange quark matter with density dependent quark masses
• Numerical Simulation of the Hydrodynamical Combustion to Strange Quark Matter in the Trapped Neutrino Regime
• Quark deconfinement in protoneutron star cores: effect of color superconductivity within the MIT bag model
• SQM studied in the Field Correlator Method
• Lepton-rich cold QCD matter in protoneutron stars
• Interface effects of strange quark matter
• Thermal fluctuations of matter composition and quark nucleation in compact stars
• Strangeness in Astrophysics and Cosmology
• Can a supernova bang twice?