Supercurrents in color-superconducting quark matter

TL;DR

This paper reviews the properties of the currCFL-K^0 phase in dense quark matter, focusing on how kaon supercurrents are incorporated and how net currents cancel out in this state.

Contribution

It introduces a fermionic formalism to describe kaon supercurrents in the color-flavor locked phase and demonstrates current cancellation mechanisms.

Findings

Kaon supercurrents are incorporated into a fermionic formalism.

Net current vanishes due to fermion and charge-conjugate fermion contributions.

The study clarifies the response of quark matter to stress at moderate densities.

Abstract

We review the basic properties of the currCFL-K^0 phase in dense quark matter. At asymptotically large densities, three-flavor quark matter is in the color-flavor locked (CFL) state. The currCFL-K^0 state is a way to respond to ``stress'' on the quark Cooper pairing, imposed at more moderate densities by the strange quark mass and the conditions of electric and color neutrality. We show how a kaon supercurrent is incorporated in a purely fermionic formalism, and show that the net current vanishes due to cancellation of fermion and charge-conjugate fermion contributions.