Quark Beta Decay and the Cooling of Neutron Stars
Abstract
It is shown that the beta decay of quarks in degenerate quark matter is kinematically allowed. The resulting neutrino emissivity is dramatically larger than that of neutron matter and comparable to that of matter with pion condensate. Thus a star with a quark-matter core would cool at a rate comparable to that for a star with a pion-condensed core, and much faster than an ordinary neutron star.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- June 1980
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 1980PhRvL..44.1637I
- Keywords:
-
- Beta Particles;
- Neutrinos;
- Neutron Stars;
- Quarks;
- Radioactive Decay;
- Stellar Temperature;
- Cooling;
- Degenerate Matter;
- Elementary Particle Interactions;
- Particle Emission;
- Pions;
- Astrophysics;
- 97.10.Cv;
- 14.80.Dq;
- 95.30.Cq;
- Stellar structure interiors evolution nucleosynthesis ages;
- Elementary particle processes