Charged pion condensation and color superconductivity phenomena in chirally asymmetric dense quark matter

TL;DR

This study investigates how charged pion condensation persists in dense, chirally asymmetric quark matter even with color superconductivity, suggesting it remains a viable phase in extreme conditions like neutron stars and heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that charged pion condensation is not suppressed by color superconductivity in chirally imbalanced dense quark matter, revealing a more complex phase structure.

Findings

Charged pion condensation persists despite color superconductivity.

Chiral imbalance does not hinder pion condensation at high densities.

Pion condensation remains viable in conditions relevant to heavy ion collisions and neutron stars.

Abstract

In this paper, the question of the influence of color superconductivity (CSC) on the formation of a phase with condensation of charged pions in dense chirally asymmetric quark matter is studied. We consider it within the framework of the massless NJL model with a diquark interaction channel at zero temperature, but in the presence of baryon $\mu_B$, isospin $\mu_I$, chiral $\mu_{5}$ and chiral isospin $\mu_{I5}$ chemical potentials. It has been shown in the mean-field approximation that in the presence of chiral imbalance, when $\mu_{5}\ne 0$ and/or $\mu_{I5}\ne 0$, CSC phenomenon does not hinder the generation of charged pion condensation in dense quark matter even at largest baryon densities attainable in heavy ion collisions experiments and in cores of neutron stars and its mergers. So charged pion condensation in dense quark matter with chiral imbalance predicted earlier is not in a bit suppressed by the presence of CSC, highlighting the resilience of this phase in dense quark matter. This makes phase structure of dense quark matter even more rich, multifaceted and interesting, and shows that pion condensation in dense quark matter is viable phenomenon to be explored, for example, in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions experiments.