Chiral symmetry breaking, color superconductivity, and the equation of state for magnetized strange quark matter

TL;DR

This paper explores the effects of strong magnetic fields on the vacuum structure, phase transitions, and equation of state of dense strange quark matter using a NJL model with chiral and diquark condensates, relevant for neutron star physics.

Contribution

It introduces a variational method to analyze chiral symmetry breaking and color superconductivity in magnetized strange quark matter within a three-flavor NJL model, including the KMT determinant term.

Findings

Derived the equation of state for charge neutral strange quark matter under strong magnetic fields.

Solved self-consistent gap equations for quark masses and diquark condensates.

Analyzed the impact of magnetic fields on the phase structure of dense quark matter.

Abstract

We investigate the vacuum structure of dense quark matter in strong magnetic fields at finite temperature and densities in a 3 flavor Nambu Jona Lasinio (NJL) model including the Kobayashi-Maskawa-t'Hooft (KMT) determinant term using a variational method. The method uses an explicit structure for the `ground' state in terms of quark-antiquark condensates as well as diquark condensates. The mass gap equations and the superconducting gap equations are solved self consistently and are used to compute the thermodynamic potential along with the charge neutrality conditions. We also derive the equation of state for the charge neutral strange quark matter in the presence of strong magnetic fields which could be relevant for neutron stars.