Detecting superfluid transition in the pulsar core
arxiv(2024)
摘要
It is believed that the core of a neutron star can be host to various novel
phases of matter, from nucleon superfluid phase to exotic high baryon density
QCD phases. Different observational signals for such phase transitions have
been discussed in the literature. Here, we point out a unique phenomenon
associated with phase transition to a superfluid phase, which may be the
nucleon superfluid phase or a phase like the CFL phase, allowing for superfluid
vortices. In any superfluid phase transition, a random network of vortices
forms via the so-called Kibble-Zurek mechanism, which eventually mostly decays
away, finally leaving primarily vortices arising from the initial angular
momentum of the core. This transient, random vortex network can have a non-zero
net angular momentum for the superfluid component, which will generally be
oriented in an arbitrary direction. This is in contrast to the final vortices,
which arise from initial rotation and hence have the initial angular momentum
of the neutron star. The angular momentum of the random vortex network is
balanced by an equal and opposite angular momentum in the normal fluid due to
the conservation of angular momentum, thereby imparting an arbitrarily oriented
angular momentum component to the outer shell of the neutron star. This will
affect the pulse timing and pulse profile of a pulsar. These changes in the
pulses will decay away in a characteristic manner as the random vortex network
decays, obeying specific scaling laws leading to universal features for the
detection of superfluid transitions occurring in a pulsar core.
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