Superconductivity of quark matter in neutron stars

by Dr Oleksii Ivanytskyi (CFisUC, Departamento de Física, Universidade de Coimbra)

Wednesday 11 Jan 2023, 14:00 → 15:00 Portugal

Sala de Conferências (Departamento de Física FCTUC)

Neutron stars are unique natural laboratories allowing studies of the densest configurations of matter reaching up to eight densities of atomic nuclei. Such extreme regimes open a plethora of tracks of exotic physics exclusively occurring in neutron stars. One of them is connected to a fundamental question of the modern theory of strong interaction, i.e. dissociation of hadrons and deconfinement of their constituent quarks. Appearance of a gap in the single particle dispersion relation is a distinct feature of any multifermion system with even vanishing attraction including quark matter. The most prominent manifestation of this gap is formation of a uniform superfluid matter. In the case of quark matter this gives rise to superconductivity of the so-called color charge carried by quarks. I will give an introduction to the topic of color superconductivity, its role in the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter with a special emphasis on properties of neutron stars with quark cores.