Metastable pions in dense media

Abstract

We study the leptonic decay of charged pions in a compact star environment. Considering leptons as a degenerated Fermi system, pions are tightly constrained to decay into these particles because their Fermi levels are occupied. Thus, pion decay is only possible through thermal fluctuations. Under these circumstances, pion lifetime is larger and hence can be considered to reach a metastable state. We explore restrictions under which such a metastability is possible. We also study conditions under which pions and leptons already in chemical equilibrium can reach simultaneously the thermal equilibrium, and obtain the neutrino emissivity from metastable pions. Scenarios that favor this metastable state are protoneutron stars.

10 pages, 5 figures. Version to appear in Phys. Rev. D

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Meson condensation
• Scrutinizing the pion condensed phase
• Inhomogeneous charged pion condensation in chiral asymmetric dense quark matter in the framework of NJL${}_2$ model
• Pion crystals hosting topologically stable baryons
• QCD phase diagram at finite isospin chemical potential and temperature in an IR-improved soft-wall AdS/QCD model
• Pions near condensation under compact star conditions