Chromomagnetic instability in two-flavor quark matter at nonzero temperature

We calculate the effective potential of the 2SC/g2SC phases including vector condensates ($$and$$) and study the gluonic phase and the single plane-wave Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell state at nonzero temperature. Our analysis is performed within the framework of the gauged Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. We compute potential curvatures with respect to the vector condensates and investigate the temperature dependence of the Meissner masses squared of gluons of color 4--7 and 8 in the neutral 2SC/g2SC phases. The phase diagram is presented in the plane of temperature and coupling strength. The unstable regions for gluons 4--7 and 8 are mapped out on the phase diagram. We find that, apart from the case of strong coupling, the 2SC/g2SC phases at low temperatures are unstable against the vector condensation until the temperature reaches tens of MeV.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, revisions to text, published in Phys. Rev.

Analytical and numerical evaluation of the Debye and Meissner masses in dense neutral three-flavor quark matter

We calculate the Debye and Meissner masses and investigate chromomagnetic instability associated with the gapless color superconducting phase changing the strange quark mass $M_s$ and the temperature $T$. Based on the analytical study, we develop a computational procedure to derive the screening masses numerically from curvatures of the thermodynamic potential. When the temperature is zero, from our numerical results for the Meissner masses, we find that instability occurs for $A_1$ and $A_2$ gluons entirely in the gapless color-flavor locked (gCFL) phase, while the Meissner masses are real for $A_4$, $A_5$, $A_6$, and $A_7$ until $M_s$ exceeds a certain value that is larger than the gCFL onset. We then handle mixing between color-diagonal gluons $A_3$, $A_8$, and photon $A_\gamma$, and clarify that, among three eigenvalues of the mass squared matrix, one remains positive, one is always zero because of an unbroken U(1)_\tilde{Q} symmetry, and one exhibits chromomagnetic instability in the gCFL region. We also examine the temperature effects that bring modifications into the Meissner masses. The instability found at large $M_s$ for $A_4$, $A_5$, $A_6$, and $A_7$ persists at finite $T$ into the $u$-quark color superconducting (uSC) phase which has $u$-$d$ and $s$-$u$ but no $d$-$s$ quark pairing and also into the two-flavor color superconducting (2SC) phase characterized by $u$-$d$ quark pairing only. The $A_1$ and $A_2$ instability also goes into the uSC phase, but the 2SC phase has no instability for $A_1$, $A_2$, and $A_3$. We map the unstable region for each gluon onto the phase diagram as a function of $M_s$ and $T$.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figure

Neutral Larkin--Ovchinnikov--Fulde--Ferrell state and chromomagnetic instability in two-flavor dense QCD

In two-flavor dense quark matter, we describe the dynamics in the single plane wave Larkin--Ovchinnikov--Fulde--Ferrell (LOFF) state satisfying the color and electric neutrality conditions. We find that because the neutral LOFF state itself suffers from a chromomagnetic instability in the whole region where it coexists with the (gapped/gapless) two-flavor superconducting (2SC/g2SC) phases, it cannot cure this instability in those phases. This is unlike the recently revealed gluonic phase which seems to be able to resolve this problem.Comment: Revtex4, 5 pages, 3 figures, clarifications added, to appear in Phys.Rev.Let

Collective excitations, instabilities, and ground state in dense quark matter

We study the spectrum of light plasmons in the (gapped and gapless) two-flavor color superconducting phases and its connection with the chromomagnetic instabilities and the structure of the ground state. It is revealed that the chromomagnetic instabilities in the 4-7th and 8th gluonic channels correspond to two very different plasmon spectra. These spectra lead us to the unequivocal conclusion about the existence of gluonic condensates (some of which can be spatially inhomogeneous) in the ground state. We also argue that spatially inhomogeneous gluonic condensates should exist in the three-flavor quark matter with the values of the mass of strange quark corresponding to the gapless color-flavor locked state.Comment: Revtex, 5 pages, 4 figures, two figures and clarifications added, to appear in PRD (Rapid Communications

Gluonic phases, vector condensates, and exotic hadrons in dense QCD

We study the dynamics in phases with vector condensates of gluons (gluonic phases) in dense two-flavor quark matter. These phases yield an example of dynamics in which the Higgs mechanism is provided by condensates of gauge (or gauge plus scalar) fields. Because vacuum expectation values of spatial components of vector fields break the rotational symmetry, it is naturally to have a spontaneous breakdown both of external and internal symmetries in this case. In particular, by using the Ginzburg-Landau approach, we establish the existence of a gluonic phase with both the rotational symmetry and the electromagnetic U(1) being spontaneously broken. In other words, this phase describes an anisotropic medium in which the color and electric superconductivities coexist. It is shown that this phase corresponds to a minimum of the Ginzburg-Landau potential and, unlike the two-flavor superconducting (2SC) phase, it does not suffer from the chromomagnetic instability. The dual (confinement) description of its dynamics is developed and it is shown that there are light exotic vector hadrons in the spectrum, some of which condense. Because most of the initial symmetries in this system are spontaneously broken, its dynamics is very rich.Comment: 33 pages, RevTeX; v.2: Published PRD versio

Neutrino emission from compact stars and inhomogeneous color superconductivity

We discuss specific heat and neutrino emissivity due to direct Urca processes for quark matter in the color superconductive Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell (LOFF) phase of Quantum-Chromodynamics. We assume that the three light quarks $u, d, s$ are in a color and electrically neutral state and interact by a four fermion Nambu-Jona Lasinio coupling. We study a LOFF state characterized by a single plane wave for each pairing. From the evaluation of neutrino emissivity and fermionic specific heat, the cooling rate of simplified models of compact stars with a quark core in the LOFF state is estimated.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, revtex4 style. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Photons in gapless color-flavor-locked quark matter

We calculate the Debye and Meissner masses of a gauge boson in a material consisting of two species of massless fermions that form a condensate of Cooper pairs. We perform the calculation as a function of temperature, for the cases of neutral Cooper pairs and charged Cooper pairs, and for a range of parameters including gapped quaisparticles, and ungapped quasiparticles with both quadratic and linear dispersion relations at low energy. Our results are relevant to the behavior of photons and gluons in the gapless color-flavor-locked phase of quark matter. We find that the photon's Meissner mass vanishes, and the Debye mass shows a non-monotonic temperature dependence, and at temperatures of order the pairing gap it drops to a minimum value of order sqrt(alpha) times the quark chemical potential. We confirm previous claims that at zero temperature an imaginary Meissner mass can arise from a charged gapless condensate, and we find that at finite temperature this can also occur for a gapped condensate.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX; expanded discussion of temperature dependenc

Color-flavor locked superconductor in a magnetic field

We study the effects of moderately strong magnetic fields on the properties of color-flavor locked color superconducting quark matter in the framework of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. We find that the energy gaps, which describe the color superconducting pairing as well as the magnetization, are oscillating functions of the magnetic field. Also, we observe that the oscillations of the magnetization can be so strong that homogeneous quark matter becomes metastable for a range of parameters. We suggest that this points to the possibility of magnetic domains or other types of magnetic inhomogeneities in the quark cores of magnetars.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Strong Nebular Line Ratios in the Spectra of z~2-3 Star-forming Galaxies: First Results from KBSS-MOSFIRE

We present initial results of a deep near-IR spectroscopic survey covering the 15 fields of the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey (KBSS) using MOSFIRE on the Keck 1 telescope, focusing on a sample of 251 galaxies with redshifts 2.0< z < 2.6, star-formation rates 2 < SFR < 200 M_sun/yr, and stellar masses 8.6 < log(M*/M_sun) < 11.4, with high-quality spectra in both H- and K-band atmospheric windows. We show unambiguously that the locus of z~2.3 galaxies in the "BPT" nebular diagnostic diagram exhibits a disjoint, yet similarly tight, relationship between the ratios [NII]6585/Halpha and [OIII]/Hbeta as compared to local galaxies. Using photoionization models, we argue that the offset of the z~2.3 locus relative to z~ 0 is explained by a combination of harder ionizing radiation field, higher ionization parameter, and higher N/O at a given O/H than applies to most local galaxies, and that the position of a galaxy along the z~2.3 star-forming BPT locus is surprisingly insensitive to gas-phase oxygen abundance. The observed nebular emission line ratios are most easily reproduced by models in which the net ionizing radiation field resembles a blackbody with effective temperature T_eff = 50000-60000 K and N/O close to the solar value at all O/H. We critically assess the applicability of commonly-used strong line indices for estimating gas-phase metallicities, and consider the implications of the small intrinsic scatter in the empirical relationship between excitation-sensitive line indices and stellar mass (i.e., the "mass-metallicity" relation), at z~2.3.Comment: 41 pages, 25 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Version with full-resolution figures available at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~ccs/mos_bpt_submit.pd

Competition of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin ordering in nuclear matter

In the framework of a Fermi liquid theory it is considered the possibility of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phase transitions in symmetric nuclear matter with Skyrme effective interaction. The zero temperature dependence of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin polarization parameters as functions of density is found for SkM$^*$, SGII effective forces. It is shown that in the density domain, where both type of solutions of self--consistent equations exist, ferromagnetic spin state is more preferable than antiferromagnetic one.Comment: 9p., 3 figure