Gapless color superconductivity
We present the dispersion relations for quasiparticle excitations about the color-flavor locked ground state of QCD at high baryon density. In the presence of condensates which pair light and strange quarks there need not be an energy gap in the quasiparticle spectrum. This raises the possibility of gapless color superconductivity, with a Meissner effect but no minimum excitation energy. Analysis within a toy model suggests that gapless color superconductivity may occur only as a metastable phase.
Alford
M
Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Berges
J
Rajagopal
K