Equation of state of nuclear matter in the first order phase transition

TL;DR

This paper studies the equation of state of nuclear matter during first-order phase transitions, highlighting the effects of mixed phases, charge screening, and surface tension on the matter's properties.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of how mixed phases and structural effects influence the EOS during various nuclear matter phase transitions.

Findings

Charge screening and surface tension make the EOS similar to Maxwell construction.

Mixed phases exhibit pasta-like structures due to Coulomb and surface tension balance.

The EOS differs from bulk Gibbs or Maxwell models due to non-uniform structures.

Abstract

We investigate the properties of nuclear matter at the first-order phase transitions (FOPT) such as liquid-gas phase transition, kaon condensation, and hadron-quark phase transition. As a general feature of the FOPT of matter consisting of many species of charged particles, there appears a mixed phases with regular structures called "pasta" due to the balance of the Coulomb repulsion and the surface tension between two phases. The equation of state (EOS) of mixed phase is different from those obtained by a bulk application of Gibbs conditions or by the Maxwell construction due to the effects of the non-uniform structure. We show that the charge screening and strong surface tension make the EOS close to that of the Maxwell construction.