High Density Quark Matter under Stress

Abstract

We study the effect of SU(3) flavor breaking on high density quark matter. We discuss, in particular, the effect a non-zero electron chemical potential and a finite strange quark mass. We argue that these perturbations trigger pion or kaon condensation. The critical chemical potential behaves as $μ_e\sim\sqrt{m m_s} Δ/p_F$ and the critical strange quark mass as $m_s \sim m^{1/3} Δ^{2/3}$, where $m$ is the light quark mass, $Δ$ is the gap, and $p_F$ is the Fermi momentum. We note that parametrically, both the critical $μ_e$ and $m_s^2/(2p_F)$ are much smaller than the gap.