Pairing instability in hot asymmetric nuclear matter

The occurrence of a pairing instability in hot asymmetric nuclear matter is studied within a t-matrix approach. The thermodynamic t-matrix is solved in the ladder approximation using a realistic nucleon-nucleon potential. By studying the analytic structure of the t-matrix we determine the critical temperature for pairing. We explore pairing in the ¹S ₀ channel as well as the ³S _1-D ₁ channel. In the latter we find a maximum critical temperature of 6-8 MeV at about half nuclear matter density in isospin-symmetric matter. The pairing correlations in the triplet channel are considerably suppressed in isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter.