Quark Description of Hadronic Phases

TL;DR

This paper proposes a quark-based framework to understand different hadronic matter phases, identifying three main phases distinguished by strangeness conservation and color locking, with implications for phase transitions and quark matter properties.

Contribution

It introduces a simple, viable model extending universality classes of hadronic matter to include strange quark effects and phase distinctions based on symmetry and color locking.

Findings

Identification of three main hadronic phases with distinct symmetry properties.

Proposal of a phase transition between hadronic matter and quark matter with K-condensation.

Explanation of the small secondary gap in two-flavor color superconductivity.

Abstract

We extend our proposal that major universality classes of hadronic matter can be understood, and in favorable cases calculated, directly in the microscopic quark variables, to allow for splitting between strange and light quark masses. A surprisingly simple but apparently viable picture emerges, featuring essentially three phases, distinguished by whether strangeness is conserved (standard nuclear matter), conserved modulo two (hypernuclear matter), or locked to color (color flavor locking). These are separated by sharp phase transitions. There is also, potentially, a quark phase matching hadronic K-condensation. The smallness of the secondary gap in two-flavor color superconductivity corresponds to the disparity between the primary dynamical energy scales of QCD and the much smaller energy scales of nuclear physics.