Color-superconductivity and inhomogeneous chiral symmetry breaking in isospin-asymmetric quark matter

TL;DR

This paper explores how isospin asymmetry influences the competition between color-superconductivity and inhomogeneous chiral symmetry breaking in dense quark matter, revealing a coexistence phase that persists at nonzero isospin chemical potentials.

Contribution

It demonstrates the survival of a coexistence phase with inhomogeneous chiral symmetry breaking and color-superconductivity under isospin asymmetry using an extended NJL model.

Findings

Coexistence window with inhomogeneous chiral symmetry breaking and diquark gap confirmed.

Phase structure is modified at large isospin asymmetries.

Coexistence phase persists at nonzero isospin chemical potentials.

Abstract

We investigate the effects of isospin asymmetry on the competition between color-superconductivity and inhomogeneous chiral symmetry breaking in dense two-flavor quark matter using an extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. We confirm the appearance of a coexistence window where chiral symmetry is inhomogeneously broken and a nonzero spatially homogeneous diquark gap is present, consistently with previous works, and show that such a phase survives at nonzero isospin chemical potentials. We also discuss how the model phase structure becomes modified as large isospin asymmetries are considered.