arXiv · hep-ph/0311342
Photon Emission from Dense Quark Matter
Abstract
Thermal emission rates and mean free paths of photons in a color-flavor locked (CFL) phase of quark matter at high densities and moderate temperatures are evaluated. Our calculations are based on a low-energy effective theory for CFL matter describing Goldstone boson excitations and their electromagnetic as well as strong interactions. In-medium coupling strengths of vector mesons are found to be smaller than in vacuum. As a consequence of in-medium modified pion dispersion relations, novel processes such as pi+ pi- -> gamma and gamma -> pi+ pi- become possible. The total photon emissivity is found to be very large, exceeding contributions from thermal e+ e- annihilation above temperatures of about 5 MeV. At the same time, the corresponding mean free paths become very small. Our results imply that the photon flux from the surface of a (hypothetical) CFL star in its early hot stages saturates the black-body limit. Estimates for the early thermal evolution of the star are also presented.
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C. Vogt, R. Rapp, R. Ouyed. 2004-03-10. Photon Emission from Dense Quark Matter. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2004.02.014
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