Continuity of vortices from the hadronic to the color-flavor locked phase in dense matter

Abstract

We study how vortices in dense superfluid hadronic matter can connect to vortices in superfluid quark matter, as in rotating neutron stars, focusing on the extent to which quark-hadron continuity can be maintained. As we show, a singly quantized vortex in three-flavor symmetric hadronic matter can connect smoothly to a singly quantized non-Abelian vortex in three-flavor symmetric quark matter in the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase, without the necessity for boojums appearing at the transition.

10 pages, 2 figures; discussions on flavor non-singlet vortices elaborated; comments on color flux and center vortices added