Two key questions about color superconductivity

Abstract

We pose two key questions about color superconductivity: What are the effects of the large strange quark mass, and what are the observable consequences of color superconductivity? Motivated by the first question, we study crystalline color superconductivity. We adapt the Nambu-Gor'kov formalism to study this phase, and go on to examine distinctions between crystalline color superconductivity induced by quark mass differences and by quark chemical potential differences. Turning to the second question, we study neutrino scattering in proto-neutron stars cooling through the critical temperature for color-flavor locked quark matter. We include neutrino interactions with the fermionic excitations, important above and just below the critical temperature, and with the massless collective excitation, important just and well below the critical temperature.