Effects of quark matter nucleation on the evolution of proto-neutron stars

Abstract

(Abridged) A phase of strong interacting matter with deconfined quarks is expected in the core of massive neutron stars. If this deconfinement phase transition is of the first order then it will be triggered by the nucleation of a critical size drop of the stable quark phase in the metastable hadronic phase. Within these circumstances it has been shown that cold pure hadronic compact stars above a threshold value of their gravitational mass are metastable with respect to the "decay" to quark stars (compact stars made at least in part of quark matter). This stellar conversion process liberates a huge amount of energy, and it could be the energy source of some of the long GRBs. The main goal of the present work is to establish whether a newborn hadronic star (proto-hadronic star) could survive the early stages of its evolution without "decaying" to a quark star. To this aim, we study the nucleation process of quark matter in hot beta-stable hadronic matter, with and without trapped neutrinos. We calculate and compare the nucleation rate and the nucleation time due to thermal and quantum nucleation mechanisms. We compute the crossover temperature above which thermal nucleation dominates the finite temperature quantum nucleation mechanism. We next discuss the consequences of quark matter nucleation for the physics and the evolution of proto-neutron stars. We introduce the new concept of limiting conversion temperature and critical mass M_cr for proto-hadronic stars, and we show that proto-hadronic stars with a mass M < M_cr could survive the early stages of their evolution without decaying to a quark star. We extend the concept of maximum mass of a "neutron star" with respect to the classical one introduced by Oppenheimer & Volkoff to account for the existence of two distinct families of compact stars (hadronic stars and quark stars) as predicted by the present scenario.

Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

References in corpus (15)

• Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star
• Color superconductivity in dense quark matter
• Cold Quark Matter
• Signals of the QCD phase transition in core-collapse supernovae
• Baryons and the phase diagram for a large number of colors and flavors
• Shear viscosity in neutron star cores
• Astrophysical Implications of Equation of State for Hadron-Quark Mixed Phase: Compact Stars and Stellar Collapses
• Effects of color superconductivity on the nucleation of quark matter in neutron stars
• Shear viscosity of neutron matter from realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions
• Effect of hyperon-hyperon interaction on bulk viscosity and r-mode instability in neutron stars
• Metastability of hadronic compact stars
• The quark core of protoneutron stars in the phase diagram of quark matter
• Deconfinement of neutron star matter within the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model
• Formation of Quark Phases in compact stars and their connection to Gamma-Ray-Bursts
• Constraints on temporal variation of fundamental constants from GRBs

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Was GW190814 a black hole -- strange quark star system?
• The Surface Tension of Quark Matter in a Geometrical Approach
• Quark matter nucleation in neutron stars and astrophysical implications
• Interplay between the symmetry energy and the strangeness content of neutron stars
• Fast spinning strange stars: possible ways to constrain interacting quark matter parameters
• Evolution of proto-neutron stars with the hadron-quark phase transition
• The Deconfinement Phase Transition in Proto-Neutron-Star Matter
• Quark deconfinement transition in neutron stars with the field correlator method
• Formation of hybrid stars from metastable hadronic stars
• Chiral model approach to quark matter nucleation in neutron stars
• Is the compact object associated with HESS J1731-347 a strange quark star?
• Constant entropy hybrid stars: a first approximation of cooling evolution
• A link between measured neutron star masses and lattice QCD data
• Hyperons and quarks in proto-neutron stars
• Bubble dynamics and the quark-hadron phase transition in nuclear collisions
• Quark matter nucleation with a microscopic hadronic equation of state
• Contraction of cold neutron star due to in the presence a quark core
• Phase transition in compact stars due to a violent shock
• The structure of hybrid neutron star in Einstein-$\Lambda$ gravity
• Oscillating Magnetized Color Superconducting Quark Stars
• General relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of binary strange star mergers
• Relativistic Gravitational Collapse by Thermal Mass
• Shear viscosity and the nucleation of antikaon condensed matter in protoneutron stars
• Isentropic hybrid stars in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model: effects of neutrino trapping
• Dark, deep, deconfining: Phase transitions in neutron stars as powerful probes of hidden sectors