Nucleating quark droplets in the core of magnetars

TL;DR

This paper explores the nucleation of quark droplets in magnetar cores, analyzing how magnetic fields influence phase transition parameters and the feasibility of quark matter formation in dense stellar environments.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of quark droplet nucleation in magnetized environments using the quark-meson model and estimates nucleation timescales relevant for magnetar core transitions.

Findings

Magnetic fields modify critical chemical potential and surface tension.

Nucleation of quark droplets is possible even with moderate surface tension.

The study provides estimates for nucleation timescales in magnetar matter.

Abstract

To assess the possibility of homogeneous nucleation of quark matter in magnetars, we investigate the formation of chirally symmetric droplets in a cold and dense environment in the presence of an external magnetic field. As a framework, we use the one-loop effective potential of the two-flavor quark-meson model. Within the thin-wall approximation, we extract all relevant nucleation parameters and provide an estimate for the typical time scales for the chiral phase conversion in magnetized compact star matter. We show how the critical chemical potential, critical radius, correlation length and surface tension are affected, and how their combination to define the nucleation time seems to allow for nucleation of quark droplets in magnetar matter even for not so small values of the surface tension.