The Phase Diagram of Neutral Quark Matter

TL;DR

This thesis explores the complex phase diagram of dense three-flavor quark matter, considering factors like strange quark mass, temperature, and neutrino trapping, with implications for protoneutron star evolution.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the phase diagram using a nine-parameter gap matrix ansatz and NJL model, including self-consistent quark masses and neutrino effects.

Findings

Phase diagram mapped in temperature and chemical potential planes.

Neutrino trapping significantly alters the phase structure.

Implications for protoneutron star evolution discussed.

Abstract

In this thesis, I study the phase diagram of dense, locally neutral three-flavor quark matter as a function of the strange quark mass, the quark chemical potential, and the temperature, employing a general nine-parameter ansatz for the gap matrix. I also study the phase diagram of dense, locally neutral three-flavor quark matter within the framework of a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. In the analysis, dynamically generated quark masses are taken into account self-consistently. The phase diagram in the plane of temperature and quark chemical potential is presented. In addition, I study the effect of neutrino trapping on the phase diagram of dense, locally neutral three-flavor quark matter within the same NJL model. The phase diagrams in the plane of temperature and quark chemical potential, as well as in the plane of temperature and lepton-number chemical potential are presented. The implications of these results for the evolution of protoneutron stars are briefly discussed.