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# Dynamic instability in resonant tunneling

## Abstract

We show that an instability may be present in resonant tunneling through a quantum well in one, two and three dimensions, when the resonance lies near the emitter Fermi level. A simple semiclassical model which simulates the resonance and the projected density of states by a nonlinear conductor, the Coulomb barrier by a capacitance, and the time evolution by an iterated map, is used. The model reproduces the observed hysteresis in such devices, and exhibits a series of bifurcations leading to fast chaotic current fluctuations.

Resonant tunneling through a double barrier, originally a rather elementary academic exercise, has already for over three decades shown to be an extremely rich source of new and surprising physics. One instance is the bistable region in the I-V characteristic that some samples exhibit, leading to hysteresis as the curve is traced first increasing and then decreasing the bias. This effect is currently understood as caused by the interaction of the current flowing through the device with the charge trapped in the well formed between the barriers. Calling Q this charge, its effect on the incoming electrons may be viewed as an increase in the local potential by Q/C, where C is the capacitance, lifting the resonance level in the same amount. The latter can thus be somewhat above or below the emitter conduction band edge at one same bias, depending on whether the well is charged or uncharged. Since in the first case there is current flow through the well and in the second there is none, both cases are physically consistent, and in fact, observed experimentally. As an application, it has been suggested that in the bistable region the device may act as a THz detector and fast switch.

Another instance are the THz oscillations that may arise in the presence of a magnetic field in the direction of the current flow, which become chaotic if the field is sufficiently strong. In contrast with the hysteresis effect described above, these oscillations are associated with passage of the resonance across the emitter Fermi level. Assuming the resonance is initially above the emitter Fermi sea and off resonance, it will eventually enter the latter as the bias is increased, allowing electrons to tunnel into the well. Thus, with a certain time constant, charge begins to build up between the barriers. The Coulomb repulsion between this charge layer and the incoming electrons effectively cause an upward shift of the bottom of the well, and hence, also of the resonance state. This may drive the system off-resonance again until the charge, due to the finiteness of the barrier and the associated lifetime of the resonance state, has tunneled out again into unoccupied states on both the emitter and collector sides. The resonance then is no longer sustained above the Fermi energy by the decreased charge in the well, the resonance falls again and a new cycle begins. Whether this oscillation is damped away or not is determined by the strength of the interaction, which in turn depends on the projected density of states in the emitter at or near the Fermi energy. By changing the profile in the density of states the magnetic field enhances this coupling, and, if large enough, induces the system to perform sustained oscillations. It is the purpose of this work to show that, under favorable conditions, the oscillations may also be present in the absence of a magnetic field, as well as situations of lower dimensionality such as tunneling through a quantum wire or dot.

We model the system by a simple circuit that captures the essence of the system under discussion, shown in Fig. 1. As will follow from the discussion below, it includes the following features that appear to be essential in the description of the device: (1) the existence of a resonance state with an associated lifetime, which results in a time delay between the bias voltage and the build-up or decay of the charge in the well (”tunneling time”); (2) the existence of a Fermi sea on the emitter side, with a density of states depending on the dimensionality of the device (bulk, planar or linear), and on the magnetic field, if present; (3) the existence of the Coulomb repulsion between the charge trapped in the well and the incoming electrons. The nonlinear element in the circuit represents transmission from the emitter side into the well, allowing a charge

$$\mathrm{\Delta }Q(t,t+\tau )=\tau I_{max}f(V)$$
(1)
to leave the source $`U_0`$ in the time interval $`\tau `$. The dimensionless nonlinear function $`f(V)`$, depending on the voltage $`V=U_0U`$ between emitter and well, is the convolution of the transmittivity of the resonance with the number of occupied states in the emitter, available for tunneling. This latter quantity may be written as

$$N(V)=\theta (eVE_r+E_F)\left[1\theta (eVE_r)\right]\rho _d(V),$$
(2)
where $`\theta (x)`$ is the Heaviside step function, $`E_r`$ is the energy of the resonance level at zero bias and $`E_F`$, the Fermi energy. All energies and voltages are assumed to be in electron-volts and measured with respect to the bottom of the conduction band on the emitter side. The quantity $`\rho _d(V)`$ represents the number of states in the emitter side, with the component of kinetic energy along the current flow equal the resonance energy shifted by the bias V. It is given by

$$\rho _d(V)=\alpha _d(eV+E_FE_r)^{\frac{d1}{2}}.$$
(3)
Here $`\alpha _d`$ is a constant depending on the dimensionality $`d=3,2`$ or $`1`$ of the emitter (the well has dimension $`d1`$). The values are, $`\alpha _1=2,\alpha _2=2L\sqrt{2m^{}}/\mathrm{\Pi }\mathrm{},\alpha _3=m^{}L^2/\pi \mathrm{}^2`$, where $`L`$ is the width of the emitter and $`m^{}`$ the effective mass of the carriers.

The capacitance C represents the Coulomb barrier. As charge flows through the nonlinear element, entering the well, the voltage drop $`V=U_0U`$ is reduced. At the same time charge is allowed to leave the well through the collector represented by the load resistor R. These elements define a time constant $`\tau _0=RC`$ characterizing the rate at which the well may be emptied. With these definitions the conservation of charge provides an equation of motion for the voltage $`U(t)`$ on the output side of the device,

$$C\left(U(t+\tau )U(t)\right)=\mathrm{\Delta }Q\tau \frac{U(t)}{R}.$$
(4)
Defining $`V_n=V(t+n\tau )`$ one obtains from Eqs. (1) and (4) the following iterated map,

$$V_{n+1}=(1\gamma )V_n\gamma RI_{max}f(V_n)+\gamma U_0,$$
(5)
where $`\gamma =\tau /\tau _0`$ and we assume that $`\tau _0>\tau `$ holds. The map has fixed points given by

$$V^{}=U_0RI_{max}f(V^{}).$$
(6)
A simple linear analysis in the neighborhood of one of these fixed points shows that for it to be stable the condition

$$1<RI_{max}\frac{df}{dV}|_V^{}<2/\gamma 1$$
(7)
must be satisfied. It follows that for either an increasing or decreasing function $`f(V)`$ at the fixed point, an instability occurs provided the local derivative is sufficiently large in absolute value for the above condition to be violated. For a sharp resonance the function $`f(V)`$ will essentially follow the profile given by Eq.(3) within the window $`E_rE_FVE_r`$, becoming negligibly small elsewhere. The finite resonance width smoothens the edges defined by the top and bottom of the Fermi sea. Assuming a lorentzian form for the transmissivity $`T(V)=\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/[(EE_r+eV)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2]`$ one has for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }<<E_F`$,

$$f(V)\rho _d(V)\left(arctg(\frac{eVE_r+E_F}{\mathrm{\Gamma }})arctg(\frac{eVE_r}{\mathrm{\Gamma }})\right).$$
(8)
The expression in parenthesis is a positive definite funtion of V resembling a hat, giving $`f(V)`$ such shape for d=1 since then $`\rho _d(V)`$ is a constant; for d=2 and 3 $`f(V)`$ rather resembles an asymmetric hat. For convenience we call it the ”hat function” in what follows.

The fixed points, as determined by Eq. (6), may be found graphically as the intersection of the straight line through the origin $`V^{}`$, and the curve representing the right hand side. Because of the inverted hat form of the latter one can easily verify that there are either one (for large or small value of $`U_0`$), or three, fixed points (some intermediate region). In this last case the fixed point in the middle intersects the rather steep fall of the $`arctg`$ function, yielding a likely unstable fixed point. The intersection furthest to the right (RFP) occurs in the flat portion of the hat function and is therefore stable.

We are interested in the leftmost fixed point (LFP) of the triple solution case, representing the intersection located in the left side of the hat function, which may also be present when there is just one fixed point. As $`U_0`$ varies, the intersection closely follows the functional form of the number of states available for tunneling (3). We first consider the $`d=1`$ case, for which $`\rho _1(V)`$ is a constant in the relevant region. Then the LFP traces the contour of the $`arctg`$ function and again the fall is governed by the rather steep $`arctg`$, and, as with the RFP, will generally violate the stability condition (7). The situation is as in the d=3 case with magnetic field since the latter modifies the spectra in the emitter transforming it into a series of quasi one dimensional dispersion laws, and for which the instability is known to exist.  For $`d=2`$, there is a square root dependence at the intersect, and if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is sufficiently small the diverging local derivative will cause the stability condition again to be violated near the edge (the Fermi energy).

The $`d=3`$ case needs closer attention because of the linear form of $`\rho _3(V)`$. Calculating the total emitter current flowing through the resonance and relating the time constant $`\tau `$ with the resonance width through $`\tau 2\pi \mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ one gets, away from the hat edges

$$RI_{max}\frac{df}{dV}|_V^{}\frac{e^2m^{}D_z}{ϵϵ_0\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{\Gamma }},$$
(9)
where $`D_z`$ is the separation between the barriers, and $`ϵ,ϵ_0`$ are the dielectric constants of the enclosed material and the vacuum, respectively. Using the values appropriate for GaAs ($`m^{}=0.068m,ϵ=12.5`$) one gets the simple stability condition

$$1.3D_z(nm)<2\gamma ,$$
(10)
where the distance $`D_z`$ is to be given in nanometers. This condition is easily violated in actual samples.

We have done numerical studies in order to verify the presence of the instability, and have found it to occur in all three cases discussed above. Figure 2 shows the I-V curves for the (a) d=1, (b) d=2 and (c) d=3 cases in the absence of a magnetic field. The parameters used in the figure are $`\gamma =0.5`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1meV`$, $`E_F=20meV`$, $`E_r=43meV`$ and $`D_z=13nm`$, appropriate for typical devices based on AlGaAs. It is also necessary to specify some short cross sectional dimensions in cases (a) and (b), chosen as $`D_xD_y=100nm^2`$ and $`D_x=10nm`$ in the figure, respectively. For these values, at low bias $`U_0`$ the device is always stable. Yet, as the voltage increases and current starts to flow, marking the entrance of the resonance in the Fermi sea, the iteration does not settle to a fixed point but rather oscillates in steps $`\tau `$, first regularly (bifurcations region) and then, at larger bias, in a chaotic fashion. The case with magnetic field and $`d=3`$, not shown, produces a similar figure for large enough field, as expected from results reported previously.

In summary, we have shown that an instability induced by the interaction of the current with the trapped charge may appear in resonant tunneling through constrictions in one, two and three dimensions, when the resonance is close to the Fermi level. Instead of integrating the quantum mechanical equations of motion as done previously for the d=3 case with magnetic field , we have used a circuit model with the advantage of mathematical simplicity and the possibility of an analytical discussion of the stability in one, two and three dimensions. Experimental accesibility of the instability may require testing emission or absorption of THz radiation. Usual electronics will normally just register a time average of the oscillations because of the small value of their typical period, which, for a resonance of 1meV width in a GaAs quantum well would be of the order of 4ps.

This research was supported in part by a Cátedra Presidencial en Ciencia and FONDECYT grant 1990425.


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# Search for nearby stars among proper motion stars selected by optical-to-infrared photometry

## 1 Introduction

Our knowledge on the stellar content of the solar neighbourhood is still very incomplete. From the statistics of the Catalogue of Nearby Stars one can infer that at 10 pc about 30% of all stars are so far undetected (Henry et al. henry97 (1997)). But the detailed observation of the very nearby stars is one of the main starting points for investigations of the stellar luminosity function, the initial mass function as well as for the search for planetary systems. Future missions for the detection of extrasolar planets (SIM, TPF, DARWIN) will concentrate on very nearby stars ($`d<10`$ pc) in order to be able to reveal not only Jupiter-class but also Earth-like planets.

High proper motion catalogues, e.g. the Luyten Half Second (LHS) catalogue (Luyten luyten79 (1979)) and the New Luyten Two Tenths (NLTT) catalogue (Luyten 1979- (1980)) contain most of the known nearby stars ($`d<25`$ pc). All 58 stars in the Catalogue of Nearby Stars (CNS3) of Gliese & Jahreiß (gliese91 (1991)) with distances less than 5 pc have proper motions larger than 0.5 arcsec/yr. Among the 280 stars within 10 pc contained in the CNS3, there is only one M dwarf with a proper motion below the NLTT limit of 0.18 arcsec/yr. In the current CNS4 (not yet published) all stars within 10 pc do have proper motions above that limit.

The majority of the $``$60000 NLTT stars have not yet been investigated further in order to determine their distances. Among the faint and red NLTT stars one can expect to find about 40% to lie within 25 pc (Jahreiß et al. jahreiss01 (2001)). The $``$3500 LHS stars received much more attention in spectroscopic and photometric follow-up observations. Nevertheless, the discovery of nearby stars among the LHS stars is still going on (Henry et al henry97 (1997); Gizis & Reid gizis97 (1997); Jahreiß et al. jahreiss01 (2001)).

One reason for the incompleteness of the catalogue of nearby stars is the lower limiting magnitude of the proper motion catalogues in the southern sky. The northern sky was covered by the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) observations starting in the 50s, and these Schmidt plates constitute the first epoch of Luyten’s high proper motion star surveys (e.g. Luyten luyten79 (1979)). Nevertheless, few faint high proper motion stars can be found from second epoch POSS observations (Monet et al. monet00 (2000)). South of $`\delta =30^{}`$, which is the POSS survey limit in the southern sky, only recently deep high proper motion surveys have been started using Schmidt plates (Scholz et al. scholz00 (2000); Ruiz et al. ruiz01 (2001)). New high proper motion stars as bright as the active M5 star APMPM J0237-5928 ($`R=13.4`$, spectroscopic distance: 12 pc) discovered by Scholz et al. (scholz99 (1999)) can be found in that region.

There are several attempts to detect nearby stars neglecting the proper motion information during the first steps of the search. One possibility is to search for extremely red faint objects, i.e. very late-type M dwarfs and the new class of L dwarfs obtained in the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) (Reid et al. reid00 (2000); Gizis et al. gizis00 (2000)) and in the DEep Near-Infrared Survey (DENIS) (Delfosse et al. delfosse01 (2001)). Another way to detect missing nearby M dwarfs consists in the subsequent observation of X-ray sources in order to identify young M dwarfs with small space motions not present in proper motion catalogues (Fleming fleming98 (1998)). But all new nearby stars found in these surveys turned out to be high proper motion stars, at least in those cases when distances of less than about 15 pc were measured.

As a logical consequence, we have started a search for the missing stars in the solar neighbourhood by combining the proper motion catalogues with near-infrared and optical sky surveys. The 2MASS data base (2nd incremental release public data base) and the A2.0 catalogue (Monet et al. monet98 (1998)) can well be used for that purpose. The proper motion stars, however, have to be re-identified in digitized sky survey (DSS) images at two different epochs.

## 2 Combining proper motion and photometry

Samples of very red (optical-to-infrared colour) point sources in the 2MASS or DENIS survey may contain compact extragalactic sources, distant red giants, nearby red dwarfs and very nearby asteroids. If the source is relatively faint in the optical ($`R>10`$) and shows a proper motion of the order of 0.1 to 10 arcsec/yr (with Barnards’s star still being the record holder in stellar proper motions), it must be a dwarf. For a red giant with that faint apparent magnitude, the proper motion would transform to a very large space velocity ($`>1000`$ km/s), which is much larger than the Galactic escape speed (cf. Leonard & Tremaine leonard90 (1990); Meillon et al. meillon97 (1997)).

In a previous paper (Jahreiß et al. jahreiss01 (2001)) we selected red NLTT stars (Luyten’s spectral classes “m” and “m$`+`$”) as candidates of nearby stars and obtained more accurate positions and photographic photometry from the APM sky catalogues (Irwin et al. irwin94 (1994)). However, the optical colours of these late-type star candidates show only a weak correlation with spectral subclass (Scholz et al. scholz00 (2000)). As already mentioned in Jahreiß et al. (jahreiss01 (2001)), optical-to-infrared colours are a much better choice. The 2MASS data base allows an all-sky search with the input of target lists or by pre-defined search parameters.

We have cross-identified NLTT stars in a region covering about 50% of the northern sky ($`07^\mathrm{h}<\alpha <19^\mathrm{h},\delta >0^{}`$) with the 2MASS data base. Only bright 2MASS sources ($`K_s<10`$) identified with faint (Luyten’s $`R>14.5`$) NLTT stars within a search radius of 60 arcsec were further investigated. All identifications were checked with two epochs of DSS images. In addition to the optical magnitude estimates given in the proper motion catalogue, we also extracted the $`R`$ magnitudes from the A2.0 catalogue (Monet et al. monet98 (1998)). The DSS1 images usually had the same epoch as the A2.0 catalogue, whereas the DSS2 images had an epoch close to that of the 2MASS data.

LHS 2090 turned out as a candidate nearby star in our first sample of about 50 stars selected for follow-up classification spectroscopy. With $`K_s=8.4`$ and $`RK_s=6.4`$ (USNO-2MASS), LHS 2090 was one of the most promising objects in the list of candidates. The whole sample of about 35 objects which was successfully observed spectroscopically, will be subject of a forthcoming paper.

## 3 Former information on LHS 2090

LHS 2090 was detected by Willem Luyten within the scope of his proper motion survey with the 48-inch Schmidt telescope and got the detection designation LP 368-128. Its refined (LHS) proper motion is $`0.785^{\prime \prime }`$ in $`216.3^{}`$. Willem Luyten’s estimates of its red and photographic magnitudes are $`R=15.5`$ and $`m_{\mathrm{pg}}=17.4`$, respectively. Luyten hoped that the mean error of the magnitudes are not larger than $`\pm `$0.6 mag though errors of even 1.5 do occur (Luyten luyten64 (1964)). Having this in mind Luyten’s magnitudes are in good agreement with the USNO-A2.0 values $`R=14.8`$ and $`B=17.7`$, which are also measurements of the POSS-I O and E plates. A finding chart of LHS 2090 was published in the LHS Atlas (Luyten & Albers luyten79b (1979)). Luyten attributed a spectral class “m” to this object. Since Luyten’s publication, no additional information on LHS 2090 became available unless the most recent astrometric and photometric measurements in USNO-A2.0 and 2MASS ($`09^\mathrm{h}00^\mathrm{m}23\stackrel{s}{.}59,+21\mathrm{°}50\mathrm{}05\stackrel{}{.}5`$ (J2000 at 2MASS epoch 1998.44)). It was too faint to enter the photometric surveys of LHS stars carried out by Eggen or Weis.

## 4 Spectroscopic distance estimate of LHS 2090

Spectroscopic follow-up observations were carried out with CAFOS, the focal reducer and faint objects spectrograph at the 2.2m Calar Alto telescope. The grism B-400 was used yielding 9.6Å per pixel on the SITe1d CCD and a wavelength coverage from 4000Å to 8000Å. A slit width of 1 arcsec was used, corresponding to a spectral resolution of 18Å. The exposure time was 60 seconds for LHS 2090 and 120 seconds for the bright comparison star GJ 1111 (observed during twilight).

The spectra were calibrated by standard procedures within the MIDAS package for bias-subtraction, flat-fielding and wavelength calibration using Ne-Ar lamp spectra. For relative flux calibration we have used spectra of secondary spectrophotometric standard stars from Oke & Gunn (oke83 (1983)).

The low-resolution spectrum of LHS 2090 is nearly identical to that of the known M6.5 dwarf GJ 1111 (see Figure 1). With that spectral type and taking the mean absolute magnitudes of M6.5 dwarfs $`M_J=10.51,M_H=9.94,M_{K_s}=9.60`$ given in Kirkpatrick & McCarthy (kirkpatrick94 (1994)), we obtained spectroscopic distance estimates $`d_J=6.06`$ pc, $`d_H=6.07`$ pc, $`d_{K_s}=5.83`$ pc, respectively. A conservative assumtion of $`\pm `$0.4 mag accuracy in absolute magnitude yields $`6.0\pm 1.1`$ pc.

## 5 Conclusions

1. After the recent discovery of DENIS-P J104817.7-395606.1 (Delfosse et al. delfosse01 (2001)), an M9 dwarf at only 4 pc spectroscopic distance from the Sun, we have found another very nearby star, LHS 2090, at 6 pc.
2. Despite its large proper motion ($`\mu =0.785`$ arcsec/yr), LHS 2090 had not been further investigated up to now.
3. The low-dispersion spectrum of LHS 2090 closely resembles that of the M6.5 star GJ 1111. We conclude therefore that LHS 2090 is of spectral type M6.5 as well. Hence the distance estimate based on the 2MASS $`JHK_s`$ magnitudes yields $`d=6`$ pc. Trigonometric parallax determination and investigation of a possible binarity of LHS 2090 is needed for confirmation.
4. The combination of high proper motion star data with infrared sky surveys such as the 2MASS survey is a very effective tool for finding previously unknown nearby red dwarfs.

###### Acknowledgements.

The spectroscopic confirmation of nearby star candidates is based on observations made with the 2.2 m telescope of the German-Spanish Astronomical Centre, Calar Alto, Spain, This research has made use of the SIMBAD database and the VizieR Catalogue Service, Strasbourg, of the STScI Digitized Sky Survey and of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. We would like to thank Darja Golikowa for her help with the re-identification of high proper motion stars in DSS images and their cross-correlation with USNO A2.0 and 2MASS data. RDS gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) (Förderkennzeichen 50 OI 0001). We thank the referee, John Gizis, for his prompt report.


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# Instabilities in a Mean-field dynamics of Asymmetric Nuclear Matter

## 1 Introduction

Nuclear matter (NM) is a binary system (neutrons and protons), this feature has stimulated a quite exciting research field: nuclei far from $`\beta `$-stability, dynamical effects of a large charge asymmetry, properties of neutron stars. In particular with radioactive beams (not only), NM with a high isospin asymmetry can be created transiently, offering the possibility to study also chemical instability associated with isospin asymmetry of NM. Indeed, recent experiments on nuclear reactions involving different ratios of the neutron to proton numbers have shown that products from nuclear multifragmentation depends strongly on the isospin asymmetry of the colliding nuclei .

In the first part of the paper we will focus on the behaviour of Asymmetric NM (ANM) at sub-normal densities where we can foresee scenarios for a dynamical formation of fragments with particular isotopic contents due to instabilities. To study these problems we show, by linking thermodynamics and Fermi liquid theory, the relation between the nature of fluctuations and the types of instabilities for a general binary system. In the second part we show a relativistic field model of hadrons (QHD) based on strongly interacting nucleon and meson fields. Inside the QHD model we have recently proposed a method to introduce Fock term contributions . Here we want to stress some implications of that improvement on the isospin physics discussed in the first part. Comparisons with the QHD model in Hartree approximation and with Skyrme interactions will be addressed.

## 2 Chemical and mechanical instabilities

### 2.1 Analytical analysis

In the context of multifragmentation the instability of NM (region where the system becomes unstable against long wave length but small amplitude fluctuation) plays a crucial role. These aspects were discussed repeatedly in the past,  but the binary character will induce new features for both scenarios that are absent in one-component systems. In the framework of Landau theory for two component Fermi liquids the spinodal border was determined by studying the stability of collective modes described by two coupled Landau-Vlasov equations for protons and neutrons. In terms of the appropriate Landau parameters the stability condition can be expressed as ,

$$(1+F_0^{nn})(1+F_0^{pp})F_0^{np}F_0^{pn}>0.$$
(1)
It is possible to show that this condition is equivalent to the following thermodynamical condition

$$\left(\frac{P}{\rho }\right)_{T,y}\left(\frac{\mu _p}{y}\right)_{T,P}>0.$$
(2)
discussed in , where $`y`$ is the proton fraction. In Fig. 1 we show the spinodal lines obtained from eq. (1) (continuous line with dots) which for asymmetric nuclear matter is seen to contain the lines corresponding to ”mechanical instability”, $`\left(\frac{P}{\rho }\right)_{T,y}<0`$ (crosses). Therefore both eqs. (1,2) describe the whole region of instability.

We want to stress, however, that by just looking at the above stability condition we cannot determine the nature of the fluctuations against which a binary system becomes chemically unstable. Indeed, the thermodynamical condition in eq. (2) cannot distinguish between two very different situations which can be encountered in nature: an attractive interaction between the two components of the mixture ($`F_0^{np},F_0^{pn}<0`$), as is the case of nuclear matter, or a repulsive interaction between the two species.

We define as isoscalar-like density fluctuations the case when proton and neutron Fermi spheres (or equivalently the proton and neutron densities) fluctuate in phase and as isovector-like density fluctuations when the two Fermi sphere fluctuate out of phase. Then it is possible to prove , based on a thermodynamical approach of asymmetric Fermi liquid mixtures,that chemical instabilities are triggered by isoscalar fluctuations in the first, i.e. attractive, situation and by isovector fluctuations in the second one. For the asymmetric nuclear matter case because of the attractive interaction between protons and neutrons the phase transition is thus due to isoscalar fluctuations that induce chemical instabilities while the system is never unstable against isovector fluctuations. Of course the same attractive interaction is also at the origin of phase transitions in symmetric nuclear matter. However, in the asymmetric case isoscalar fluctuations lead to a more symmetric high density phase everywhere under the instability line defined by eq.(1

### 2.2 Numerical results: heated nuclear matter in a box

The previous discussion is based on a link between thermodynamics and Fermi liquid approaches. Then numerical approach were performed in order to follow all stages of fluctuation development in the fragment formation process. In the numerical approach we consider nuclear matter in a box of size L=24fm imposing periodic boundary conditions.

We follow a phase space test particle method to solve the Landau-Vlasov dynamics (using Gaussian wave packets) so the dynamics of nucleon-nucleon collision is also included. An initial temperature is introduced by distributing the test particle momenta according to Fermi distribution. We have followed the space-time evolution of test particles for a value of the initial asymmetry I=0.5, at initial density $`\rho ^{(0)}=0.09fm^3`$ and T=5 MeV in such way we start from the region of chemical instability (see Fig.1). The initial density perturbation was created automatically due to the random choice of test particle positions. We report in Fig.2 density distribution in the plane $`z`$=0 at three time steps $`t`$=0,100,200 fm/c,corresponding respectively to initial conditions, intermediate and final stages of the spinodal decomposition (SD). The contour plots delimit the region with density higher than the initial value of density.

We report the time evolution of neutron (thick histogram) and proton (thin histogram) abundance (Fig.3a) and asymmetry in various density bins (Fig.3b). The dashed line respectively shows the initial uniform density value $`\rho ^{(0)}=0.09fm^3`$ (3a) and the initial asymmetry I=0.5 (3b). The drive to higher density regions is clearly different for neutrons and protons: at the end of the dynamical clustering mechanism we have different asymmetries in the liquid and gas phases (see the panel at 200 fm/c). This result is the same of ref.10 where the dynamics of mechanical instabilities were studied, demonstrating that also in a complete dynamical calculation the kind of fluctuation associated with chemical and mechanical instabilities are the same.

## 3 Quantum hadrodynamics model (QHD)

### 3.1 Treatment of Fock terms

Phenomenological hadronic field theories (Quantum Hadrodynamics, $`QHD`$) are widely used in dense nuclear matter studies . In most of the previous works on the subject, the Relativistic Mean Field ($`RMF`$) approximation of $`QHD`$ has been followed. In the $`RMF`$ the meson fields are treated as classical fields and a Hartree reduction of one body density matrices is used. This implies that each meson field is introduced, with appropriated readjusted couplings, just to describe the dynamics of a corresponding degree of freedom, without mixing due to many-body effects: neutral $`\sigma `$ and $`\omega `$ mesons are in charge of saturation properties, isospin effects are carried by isovector $`\delta `$ and $`\rho `$ mesons. In a sense the model represents a straightforward extension of the One-Boson-Exchange ($`OBE`$) description of nucleon-nucleon scattering.

Our aim is to introduce explicit many-body effects just evaluating exchange term contributions. Fock terms play an essential role in symmetry breaking and consequent mixing of different degrees of freedom. In particular, in the context of the QHD model, essential properties of nuclear matter come mostly from the two neutral strong meson fields. Hence it is important to evaluate the Fock contribution associated with these fields.

Then we will start from a $`QHDII`$ model  where the nucleons are coupled to neutral scalar $`\sigma `$ and vector $`\omega `$ mesons and to the isovector $`\rho `$ meson. Self-interaction terms of the $`\sigma `$-field were originally introduced for renormalization reasons  and can also be considered as a way to parametrize the density dependence of $`NN`$ force. Actually they are also describing medium effects essential to reproduce important properties (compressibility and nucleon effective mass) of nuclear matter around saturation density.

The Lagrangian density for this model is given by:

$`=\overline{\psi }[\gamma _\mu (i^\mu g_V𝒱^\mu g_\rho ^\mu \tau )(Mg_S\varphi )]\psi +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi m_{S}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\varphi ^2)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{a}{3}}\varphi ^3{\displaystyle \frac{b}{4}}\varphi ^4{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}W_{\mu \nu }W^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_{V}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}𝒱_\nu 𝒱^\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}𝐋_{\mu \nu }𝐋^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_{\rho }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}_\nu ^\nu `$ (3)
where $`W^{\mu \nu }(x)=^\mu 𝒱^\nu (x)^\nu 𝒱^\mu (x)`$ and $`𝐋^{\mu \nu }(x)=^\mu ^\nu (x)^\nu ^\mu (x).`$ Here $`\psi (x)`$ generally denotes the fermionic field, $`\varphi (x)`$ and $`𝒱^\nu (x)`$ represent neutral scalar and a vector boson fields, respectively. $`^\nu (x)`$ is the charged vector field and $`\tau `$ denotes the isospin matrices.

We have treated Hartree-Fock (HF) terms in EOS and transport equation at the same level, for this reason we performed the many-body calculations in the quantum phase space introducing the Wigner transform of the one-body density matrix of the fermion field. This method has the advantages of a direct derivation of dynamical transport equations . In ref.  the way we introduce Fock terms is discussed in detail, here we want to discuss some results for $`EOS`$ of ANM.

### 3.2 Asymmetric Nuclear Matter

We obtain, thanks to Fock terms, scalar and vector isovector contributions to symmetry energy, generally associated respectively with $`\delta `$ and $`\rho `$ mesons, even without isovector mesons . We show the comparison between our Non Linear Hartree-Fock (NLHF) and those of the Non linear Hartree (NLH), including the isovector $`\rho `$ and $`\delta `$ mesons , with parameters fitted in order to give the same saturation properties and a symmetry energy at $`\rho _0`$ of 31 MeV. The region in (T,$`\rho `$) plane at different asymmetry of chemical and mechanical region are quite similar  to the one of Skyrme interaction (see Fig.1).

In Fig.4 the symmetry energy obtained in NLHF (solid line) in comparison with the result of NLH including both $`\rho `$ and $`\delta `$ meson (dashed line). Actually the kinetic contribution is subtracted (anyway it is the same in all the models),so we will refer to potential symmetry energy $`E_{sym}^{pot}`$. For reference the most common result, including only $`\rho `$ as isovector meson, is plotted (long dashed line). In all these relativistic models a quite repulsive density dependence of the simmetry term is obtained, but we notice that the density dependence of $`E_{sym}^{pot}`$ in the complete NLH+$`\rho `$+$`\delta `$ model is quite different respect to our result. This is due to the fact that in NLHF the coupling in the isovector channels become density dependent. This implies a ”softer” behaviour of the potential symmetry term below the saturation density in the NLHF case and a ”stiff” behaviour more similar to NLH +$`\rho `$ above.

A transport equation can be consistently derived to be used for the study of dynamical evolution of nuclear matter far from normal conditions. We expect that the dynamical evolution can point out the important difference between NLH and NLHF by comparison with experimental data for isospin of IMF (in multifragmentation or neck events) and for isospin flows. We have just found as the latter are affected by density behaviour of $`E_{sym}^{pot}`$ and the nucleon effective mass splitting . In this view ve have performed the study of collective response in ANM by means of a relativistic kinetic equation in linear approximation respect to the fluctuation . In Fig.5 we present the unstable isoscalar-like solution of the dispersion relation for low density NM (the density is $`\rho =0.4\rho _0`$), in particular the ratio $`\delta \rho _3/\delta \rho _b`$ as function of the initial asymmetry. We notice that the NLHF tendency to restore the isotopical symmetry in the spinodal decomposition of neutron rich NM is different respect to NLH result (both dashed and long dashed result). In particular we stress that the discrepancy is equal to the one obtained  with Skyrme interaction, in a non relativistic approach, comparing a Asy-soft with an Asy-stiff term for symmetry energy. However at variance with Skyrme results the behaviour of $`E_{sym}`$ in NLHF appear to be Asy-soft at subnuclear density but it’s Asy-stiff above saturation density. A mixed behaviour is predicted with expected interesting effects on experimental observable depending on the probed barion density region of the interacting nuclear matter.


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# A Composite Seyfert 2 X-ray Spectrum: Implications for the Origin of the Cosmic X-ray Background

## 1 Introduction

Extensive observational effort over the past two decades has provided compelling evidence that various types of radio-quiet active galactic nuclei (AGNs), despite the diversity of their apparent properties, are essentially similar objects that look different because of the presence or absence of dense circumnuclear material along our line of sight (Antonucci 1993). The primary effect of such material is to obscure the innermost regions of an active nucleus; this gives rise to a type 2 optical spectrum which consists of relatively narrow permitted and forbidden emission lines and lacks the very broad Balmer lines that characterize the spectra of unobscured (type 1) AGNs. In addition, the dense material preferentially attenuates the soft X-ray emission produced by an AGN, flattening its X-ray spectrum at lower energies (Awaki et al. 1991). This unified picture of AGNs has thus allowed significant progress to be made toward a resolution of the most enduring problem in X-ray astronomy—the origin of the cosmic X-ray background (XRB)—by providing a means by which the integrated emission from intrinsically steep-spectrum AGNs might be able to match the flat observed spectrum of the background. Models based on AGN unification have shown that absorbed active nuclei may indeed account for both the spectrum and intensity of the XRB over a broad range of energies (Setti & Woltjer 1989; Madau, Ghisellini, & Fabian 1994; Comastri et al. 1995).

These models, however, rely on several crucial assumptions: (1) that all type 2 AGNs are obscured type 1 objects; (2) that the absorption column densities of active galaxies have a specific distribution; and (3) that the X-ray luminosity function of absorbed AGNs evolves with redshift in a particular way. None of these conditions has been fully verified observationally. To explore the issue of whether or not all type 2 AGNs are hidden type 1 objects, we have conducted an optical spectropolarimetric survey of a well-defined sample of 31 nearby Seyfert 2 galaxies (Moran et al. 2000). Broad H$`\alpha `$ emission has been detected in 13 of the objects, suggesting that at least 42% of Seyfert 2 galaxies are indeed obscured Seyfert 1s.111Re-observation of part of our sample has revealed faint polarized broad emission lines in NGC 5347 and NGC 5929, raising the number of hidden Seyfert 1s in our sample from 11 to 13. Details will be presented in a future paper. Recent progress has also been made toward a determination of the column density distribution in Seyfert galaxies (e.g., Bassani et al. 1999; Risaliti, Maiolino, & Salvati 1999). An alternative approach for assessing the contribution of absorbed AGNs to the XRB would be to measure their integrated broadband spectral properties within a known volume. A composite spectrum based on the summed emission of such objects would simultaneously represent several characteristics of the Seyfert 2 population that are free parameters in AGN models of the XRB. In this Letter, we present for the first time a composite 1–10 keV Seyfert 2 X-ray spectrum, derived from a large, unbiased sample of nearby objects, and discuss its implications for the origin of the XRB.

## 2 X-ray Observations and Analysis

Our study is based on the distance-limited sample of Ulvestad & Wilson (1989, hereafter UW89; see also Moran et al. 2000), which contains 31 type 2 Seyfert galaxies with recession velocities $`cz<4600`$ km s-1 and declinations $`\delta >45^{}`$. As of mid-1998, 22 objects in the sample had been (or were scheduled to be) observed with the ASCA and/or BeppoSAX satellites. We were awarded time for the nine remaining targets in ASCA Cycle 7 . Unfortunately, two of the observations scheduled prior to this were given low-priority status and were never carried out. The galaxies lacking X-ray data (NGC 5283 and NGC 5728) have average radio and optical luminosities compared to the rest of the sample, and their absence here is not expected to have a significant impact on our results. Although a number of objects were observed with both ASCA and BeppoSAX, all 29 were observed with ASCA, so we have limited our study to that dataset. In addition, because of the consistency of the response and field of view of ASCA’s Gas Imaging Spectrometers (GIS2 and GIS3), we have utilized data obtained with those instruments only.

We have employed “rev2”-processed and screened ASCA data.222See http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/asca/ascarev2.html for details regarding rev2 data processing. Exposures for the majority of the sample range between $``$ 35 ks and 45 ks. All of the galaxies were observed at either the “1-CCD” or “2-CCD” positions in the field of view, so all objects are approximately the same distance off-axis in the GIS images. Two galaxies, NGC 1068 and Mrk 3, were observed twice each, but in both cases the additional data were obtained at different off-axis locations and have therefore been omitted. Source counts were extracted within a $`6^{}`$ radius region centered on the galaxy for most objects; $`4^{}`$$`5^{}`$ radius regions were used for the weakest sources. The background was estimated within a $`13^{}`$ radius circle centered on the optical axis, excluding an $`8^{}`$ region around the source and small areas around resolved background sources, if present. Table 1 lists the galaxies observed, along with their distances (assuming $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1) and GIS exposure times. Also listed are the signal-to-noise ratios achieved with the combined GIS2 and GIS3 data in the 1–10 keV band. As the table indicates, all objects were detected above a significance of $`4\sigma `$. Note, however, that over a third of the sample is detected at or below $`10\sigma `$; thus, it would be impossible to determine an accurate distribution of absorption column densities with these data. Source and background spectra with 128 channels were created for each object from the extracted events, and effective area files were generated for each of the source spectra.

Our objective is to construct a composite spectrum that is representative of the local Seyfert 2 population, i.e., one in which the contribution of individual objects is governed by their apparent luminosities, not their observed fluxes. Thus, we have multiplied the exposure times in the FITS headers of the background-subtracted spectra of each galaxy by the factor $`(60/d)^2`$, where $`d`$ is the distance of the source in Mpc from Table 1. The modified GIS count rates are listed in the final column of Table 1. Summing the modified count rates of the objects (using the FTOOLS task mathpha), we obtain a composite spectrum that represents what we would observe if the objects were all located at 60 Mpc. The sums were carried out for the GIS2 and GIS3 data separately, yielding nearly identical results. The GIS2 and GIS3 sums were then averaged to produce a final composite 1–10 keV Seyfert 2 X-ray spectrum. Poisson errors were propagated at each step in the procedure. The individual effective area files were averaged with the addarf task. We note that if the objects were all 60 Mpc away, the data obtained would correspond to a total exposure time of $`8.5\times 10^6`$ s, which illustrates why it would be difficult to repeat this experiment for a more distant sample of comparable size.

## 3 The Composite Seyfert 2 X-ray Spectrum

The composite 1–10 keV Seyfert 2 spectrum, derived from the combined emission of 29 galaxies, is displayed in Figure 1. There is a considerable amount of steep-spectrum emission below 3 keV, which was not anticipated in the original Seyfert 2 XRB models. Above 3 keV, however, the composite spectrum is inverted, with strong Fe K$`\alpha `$ line emission at 6.4 keV (rest). Again, the objects in our sample are included on the basis of their distances and optical classifications, not their X-ray properties. The composite spectrum thus verifies that Seyfert 2 galaxies as a class have the X-ray spectral properties necessary to explain the flat shape of the XRB spectrum—something which cannot be claimed for any other extragalactic population. Examination of the modified count rates listed in Table 1 indicates that a single source, NGC 4507, contributes $`30`$% of the flux of the composite spectrum and that eight other objects (Mrk 3, NGC 262, 424, 788, 1068, 3081, 3281, and 5135) are responsible for an additional $`50`$%. Among these, NGC 424, 1068, and 5135 contribute mainly in the soft X-ray band. The others, which are the strongest sources above 4 keV, all have “Compton-thin” spectra with absorption column densities (inferred with the model described below) of $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ = 2–8 $`\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2.

We have modeled the composite spectrum as the sum of a Gaussian line and two power laws, one which is heavily absorbed and one which is not. An acceptable fit is obtained if we require the energy index $`\alpha `$ of the power-law components to have the same value. Such a model corresponds to the “partial scattering” scenario, in which a single continuum component is observed both in transmission through dense material and via scattering along a less obscured line of sight. However, for a handful of Seyfert 2 galaxies that have been studied with BeppoSAX, this model underpredicts the observed flux in the 20–30 keV range (e.g., Cappi et al. 1999), probably because it fails to account for the presence of Compton-reflected emission. Limited to the 1–10 keV band, we are unable to constrain the strength of a reflection component in the composite spectrum. A double power-law model in which the energy indices are independent also provides an acceptable fit to the composite spectrum; the fit is shown in Figure 1. This model may not provide the correct physical description of the emission, but when it is applied to the ASCA spectra of individual Seyfert 2s observed with BeppoSAX (e.g., several of the objects studied by Cappi et al. 2000) it does accurately predict their measured fluxes in the 20–30 keV range. This is important because our estimate of the contribution of Seyfert 2 galaxies to the intensity of the XRB (§ 4) necessarily involves an extrapolation of the composite spectrum to higher energies.

We have compiled composite spectra separately for objects in our sample which do and do not exhibit evidence for polarized broad optical emission lines (see Table 1). These are displayed in Figure 2. Although there are differences in detail between these spectra, they have similar qualitative features: a declining continuum in the soft X-ray band which rises sharply at harder energies, and a prominent Fe K$`\alpha `$ line. Thus, objects lacking optical evidence for a hidden broad-line region—at least the X-ray–brightest of them—display the characteristics of obscured type 1 Seyferts in the 1–10 keV range. Note that the steep soft X-ray component is relatively stronger in Seyfert 2s that do not have polarized optical emission lines, which casts some doubt on the possibility that the soft X-ray flux in these objects is mainly scattered emission.

## 4 Seyfert 2 Galaxies and the X-ray Background

As we have discussed previously (Moran et al. 2000), the UW89 objects comprise a reasonably complete, distance-limited sample of classical Seyfert 2 galaxies. Since they occupy a known volume, the composite spectrum we have derived is effectively an unbiased measure of the local Seyfert 2 volume emissivity (luminosity per unit volume) as a function of X-ray energy. This can be integrated over redshift using the following equation to provide an estimate of the sky brightness at energy $`E`$ due to such objects:

$$I_\mathrm{E}=\frac{c}{4\pi H_0}_0^{z_{\mathrm{max}}}\frac{\rho (E^{})e(z)dz}{(1+z)[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }]^{1/2}},$$

where $`\rho `$ is the volume emissivity at $`E^{}=E(1+z)`$, $`e(z)`$ is a term that describes the evolution of the volume emissivity with redshift, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are the matter and vacuum-energy density parameters, respectively. Since we have “moved” all of the galaxies to $`d=60`$ Mpc, the composite spectrum shown in Figure 1 (which is the sum of their fluxes) is converted to a volume emissivity by multiplying by $`4\pi d^2`$ and dividing by 0.6 times the volume of a 60 Mpc sphere.333The sample does not cover the Galactic plane ($`|b|<20^{}`$) or the south celestial cap ($`\delta <45^{}`$), hence the factor of 0.6. Although the evolution term $`e(z)`$ is unmeasured for type 2 AGNs, it has been characterized for type 1 objects in the soft X-ray band by Miyaji, Hasinger, & Schmidt (2000). For simplicity, we have adopted their pure-density evolution model, which has the following form: $`e(z)=(1+z)^{4.4}`$ for $`z1.6`$, and $`e(z)=e(1.6)[(1+z)/2.6]`$ for $`z>1.6`$ (T. Miyaji 2001, private communication). This evolution model can account for all of the soft XRB with type 1 AGNs, so our results should be considered an upper limit for the contribution of type 2 Seyferts to the hard XRB. Finally, we have adopted an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ cosmology for our calculations (Garnavich et al. 1998; Balbi et al. 2000; Hanany et al. 2000) and an upper integration limit of $`z_{\mathrm{max}}=6`$ (AGNs have been detected out to this redshift).

The results of the integration in the 1–10 keV band are displayed in Figure 3. As anticipated (see Gilli et al. 1999), the integration has smoothed out all of the bumps and wiggles in the composite Seyfert 2 spectrum. Assuming that steep-spectrum ($`\alpha =0.8`$) type 1 AGNs produce $``$ 60% of the XRB at 1 keV—consistent with the findings of the ROSAT deep survey of the “Lockman Hole” (Schmidt et al. 1998)—the combined contribution of Seyfert 1 and Seyfert 2 galaxies agrees exceptionally well with the observed spectrum and intensity of the XRB (from Gendreau et al. 1995) above $``$ 3 keV. Our calculations are not particularly sensitive to the adopted cosmology. For example, if we assume $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=1.0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.0`$, the Seyfert 2 contribution we obtain has the same overall shape as that shown in Figure 3 and about two-thirds of the integrated intensity.

In conclusion, the spectrum of the summed broadband X-ray emission of nearby Seyfert 2 galaxies and its integration over redshift provide strong support for the hypothesis that absorbed AGNs play a significant (if not dominant) role in the production of the hard X-ray background. Some important details need to be investigated further before we can consider the XRB problem to be solved, namely, the average spectral properties of Seyfert 2 galaxies above 10 keV and the cosmic evolution of the Seyfert 2 X-ray luminosity function. In addition, if optically classified Seyfert 2 galaxies produce most of the hard XRB, as Figure 3 suggests, then the majority of the flat-spectrum sources being detected in deep Chandra images should be Seyfert 2s. Currently, this does not appear to be the case—a significant fraction of faint, hard Chandra sources have starlight-dominated optical spectra with emission lines that are weak or absent (Barger et al. 2001; Hornschemeier et al. 2001). It is possible that the Seyfert 2 X-ray luminosity function evolves less rapidly than we have assumed, which would leave room for other types of AGNs—objects so obscured there is no optical evidence of their activity—to emerge at faint flux levels. Alternatively, the limitations of ground-based observing have almost certainly affected our ability to classify faint Chandra sources. The majority of these sources are quite distant, so in spectroscopic observations most of the light from their host galaxies is collected along with the nuclear emission. At the low spectral resolution that is typically employed, this starlight dilution can have a profound impact on the appearance of the nuclear emission-line spectrum. A powerful demonstration of this effect has been presented by Kennicutt (1992). Thus, the faint, hard Chandra source population may not be significantly different from the nearby Seyfert 2 galaxies we have investigated here.

We are grateful to T. Miyaji for helpful discussions about the AGN X-ray luminosity function, and to the ASCA Cycle 7 peer review panel for approving a substantial amount of satellite time for this project. We also thank our referee for a number of insightful comments. E.C.M. is supported by NASA through Chandra Fellowship grant PF8-10004 awarded by the Chandra X-ray Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA under contract NAS 8-39073. L.E.K. acknowledges the support of the NSF through CAREER grant AST-9501835. A.J.B. is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. We also acknowledge NASA grant NAG 5-3556 and a Guggenheim Fellowship to A.V.F.


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# Formation Of Quark Matter In Neutron Stars

## I Introduction

When the nuclear matter is compressed and/or heated, it is expected to undergo hadron-quark phase transition with the phase at higher densities or temperatures consisting of deconfined quarks and gluons. A schematic phase diagram for this transition is shown in Fig(1). Although the idea of quark-hadron phase transition is, by now, widely accepted, the details of the transition are not yet completely understood. Recent lattice-QCD calculations show that for three flavour matter, the transition temperature at zero baryon chemical potential ( or baryon density ) is about 170 MeV. These calculations also show that at the transition point, the system consists of deconfined but strongly interacting quarks and gluons and only when the temperature reaches 230 MeV and above the interactions between quarks and gluons become weak and the matter can be regarded as ( almost ) free quarks and gluons. Above this temperature the energy density and pressure start approaching the value for the gas of non-interacting relativistic particles. The lattice calculations indicate that at the transition temperature the energy density is around 0.6 $`GeV/fm^3`$ and when the temperature reaches 230 MeV or so the energy density is around 3 $`GeV/fm^3`$. Note that, according to earlier estimates of the energy density at the transition temperature was expected to be higher at 2 $`GeV/fm^3`$, which is 3 to 4 times larger than the current lattice estimate. Depending on the mass of the strange quark, the phase transition may be second order or cross-over phenomenon. It is expected that when the baryon chemical potential is increased from zero, at some point a tricrital point is reached and beyond that point the transition is expected to be first order. At present, the lattice QCD calculations are not in position tell much about the chemical potential or baryon density at which the transition takes place when the temperature is small. However, it is reasonable to assume that the energy density at which the phase transition occurs does not depend sensitively on the temperature or chemical potential. In that case, at small temperatures the baryon density at the transition is expected to be around 3-5 times nuclear matter density.

Recent theoretical investigations have shown that, because of attractive quark-quark interaction in isospin-singlet and colour-$`\overline{3}`$ channel, the quark matter, after the phase transition, should be in colour-superconducting phase. The Cooper pairs of the colour-superconducting phase will have diquark structure with the colour being in $`\overline{3}`$ channel. Although the details of the colour-superconducting phase are not yet known it is expected that the superconducting gap should be tens of MeV and therefore the colour superconductivity should persists at temperatures of tens of MeV. This is likely to have interesting consequences on the cooling of neutron stars. In particular, if if the superconducting gap is tens of MeV, the elastic scattering of neutrinos from the quarks will be suppressed and this will make the quark matter transparent to neutrinos. We shall come to this point later.

The preceding discussion implies that the nuclear matter is likely to undergo hadron-quark phase transition when the nuclear densities increase above $`35\times \rho _{NM}`$ where $`\rho _{NM}`$ is the equilibrium nuclear matter density ( $`0.17fm^3`$ ). Calculations based on a widely different nuclear equations of state show that the baryon number densities in the cores of neutron stars are quite large ( 7 times $`\rho _{NM}`$ or larger ) and therefore it is reasonable to expect that the cores of the neutron stars would consist of quark matter. In the present work, we shall be investigating the details of the formation of the quark matter in such situations. In particular, we shall be considering the scenario where the baryonic matter at the phase transition contains few strange particles and therefore after the transition the quark matter will consist of predominantly u and d quarks. This is not a chemically equilibrated configuration of the quark matter. This can be understood as follows. At the transition point, the matter will predominantly consist of d and u quarks and some electrons, with d quark density being roughly two times u quark density and practically no s quarks. Thus d and u quark chemical potentials will be large ( much larger than the s quark mass ). As a result, it would be energetically favourable for the d quarks at the Fermi surface to decay into s quarks by weak interaction till chemical equilibrium between d and s quarks is reached. At the chemical equilibrium, the chemical potentials of the three quark species will be almost equal. Further more, since the baryon density of the quark matter is larger than 3-5 $`\times \rho _{NM}`$, the chemical potentials of the quarks will be large in comparison with the quark masses. This implies that the densities of the quarks of three flavours will be almost equal. Therefore, the strangeness fraction ( defined as the ratio of strangeness density to baryon number density) would be close to unity in the quark matter. On the other hand, the strangeness fraction is expected to be close to zero in the hadronic phase. Thus, the quark matter formation in neutron stars should be associated with the generation of strangeness.

In addition to the production of strangeness the equilibration process will liberate considerable amount of energy which will result in the increase in the temperature of the quark matter. The reason for this is the fact that the weak interaction reactions will be converting the d quarks having large energy ( since these are at the Fermi surface ) to s quarks having small energies since the initial Fermi momentum of d quarks is much larger than the Fermi momentum of s quarks. The difference in the energies of the d and s quarks will go into raising of the temperature the quark matter. In addition, the semi-leptonic weak interactions, which will be occurring during the chemical equilibration will produce a large number of neutrinos. Further more, after the chemical equilibration, the semi-leptonic weak reactions are expected to continue and contribute to the cooling of the quark matter by loosing energy to the out-going neutrinos. In the present work, we have computed the different weak reaction rates which are responsible for the chemical equilibration process. Using these reaction rates the chemical equilibration time, change in the temperature and pressure of the quark matter and the number of neutrinos produced during equilibration are calculated. In our calculations the reaction rates are computed using standard weak interaction theory and we have assumed that the constituents of the quark matter are in thermal equilibrium during the chemical equilibration process. This is a reasonable assumption since the chemical equilibration precess is due to weak interaction where as the thermal equilibration is achieved by strong and electromagnetic interactions which have larger reaction rates.

The paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the reaction rates for different weak interactions are computed and the evolution equations for densities of different constituents of the quark matter are defined. The expression for neutrino emission rates, rate of change of pressure, internal energy and energy liberation into neutrinos are also given in Section II. In Section III the results of the computations are presented and discussed. Finally the implications of these results on supernova collapse is discussed in Section IV.

## II Weak Interaction Rates

As mentioned in the preceding Section, when the transition from hadron to quark matter takes place in stellar object ( a neutron star or a proto-neutron star formed during the collapse of a white dwarf ), the quark matter predominantly consists of u and d quarks, apart from some electrons and gluons if the temperature of the star is large. Particularly, the s quark density is small when the transition takes place. Generally, the temperature to be few tens of MeV in a proto-neutron star and less than 0.1 MeV for neutron stars at the transition. As a result, the gluons are not expected to play an important role. To begin with, we assume the baryon density ( $`\rho _B`$ ) to be same as that before the phase transition. The u and d quark and electron densities are determined from baryon density, charge neutrality and $`\beta `$-equilibrium ( among u, d quarks and electrons ):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(\rho _d+\rho _u)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _B`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\rho _u{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\rho _d\rho _e`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (2)
$`\mu _d`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _u+\mu _e.`$ (3)
Here $`\mu _i`$ is the chemical potential of the particle species $`i`$ and the particles are assumed to have Fermi distribution $`F(ϵ_i,\mu _i,T)=\frac{1}{e^{(ϵ_i\mu _i)/T}+1}`$ with $`ϵ_i`$ and $`\mu _i`$ being the energy and chemical potential of the particle of species i and T the temperature. If the strange particle density is assumed to be nonzero before the transition, the initial strange quark density is determined so that the strangeness fraction after the transition is same as that before the transition. Then the charge conservation and baryon number density conservation equations above get modified to include s quarks.

The chemical equilibration is reached by the weak interactions among the quarks and electrons. These are:

$`d+u`$ $``$ $`s+u`$ (4)
$`d(s)+e^+`$ $``$ $`u+\overline{\nu }_e`$ (5)
$`u+e^{}`$ $``$ $`d(s)+\nu _e.`$ (6)
The first reaction above is nonleptonic weak reaction and it does not involve neutrino emission. The neutrinos are emitted in other two reactions. Note that both electrons and positrons are included in the reactions above since the temperature of the matter is generally larger than the electron mass and generally the electron chemical potential is less than the temperature. In addition, one also has reactions which have three body final state:

$`d(s)`$ $``$ $`u+e^{}+\overline{\nu }_e`$ (7)
$`u`$ $``$ $`d(s)+e^+\nu _e.`$ (8)
It turns out that the reaction rates of the last two reactions are much smaller. We therefore do not include these reactions in our calculations.

Using the standard V-A theory of the weak interactions, the transition matrix elements for these reactions can be calculated. One can then compute the reaction rates by integrating the square of the transition matrix element over the momenta of the particles involved in the reaction, average over the spins of incident particles and sum over the spins of product particles. After some integrations the reaction rates can be written in the form

$`R_{ds}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{18G_F^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _c\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _c}{(2\pi )^5}}{\displaystyle 𝑑p_d𝑑p_{u_1}𝑑p_{u_2}𝑑p_sp_dp_{u_1}p_{u_2}p_s\delta (ϵ_d+ϵ_{u_1}ϵ_sϵ_{u_2})}`$ (11)
$`F(ϵ_d,\mu _d,T)F(ϵ_{u_1},\mu _u,T)\left(1F(ϵ_s,\mu _s,T)\right)\left(1F(ϵ_{u_2},\mu _u,T)\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle _{max\{|p_dp_{u_1}|,|p_sp_{u_2}|\}}^{min\{p_d+p_{u_1},p_sp_{u_2}\}}}𝑑P\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_d^2+p_{u_2}^2P^2}{2ϵ_dϵ_{u_2}}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_s^2+p_{u_1}^2P^2}{2ϵ_sϵ_{u_1}}}\right)`$
$`R_{sd}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{18G_F^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _c\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _c}{(2\pi )^5}}{\displaystyle 𝑑p_d𝑑p_{u_1}𝑑p_{u_2}𝑑p_sp_dp_{u_1}p_{u_2}p_s\delta (ϵ_s+ϵ_{u_1}ϵ_dϵ_{u_2})}`$ (14)
$`F(ϵ_s,\mu _s,T)F(ϵ_{u_1},\mu _u,T)\left(1F(ϵ_d,\mu _d,T)\right)\left(1F(ϵ_{u_2},\mu _u,T)\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle _{max\{|p_sp_{u_1}|,|p_dp_{u_2}|\}}^{min\{p_s+p_{u_1},p_dp_{u_2}\}}}𝑑P\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_s^2+p_{u_2}^2P^2}{2ϵ_sϵ_{u_2}}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_d^2+p_{u_1}^2P^2}{2ϵ_dϵ_{u_1}}}\right)`$
$`R_{du}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6G_F^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _c}{(2\pi )^5}}{\displaystyle 𝑑p_d𝑑p_{e^+}𝑑p_u𝑑p_\nu p_dp_{e^+}p_up_\nu \delta (ϵ_d+ϵ_{e^+}ϵ_uϵ_\nu )}`$ (17)
$`F(ϵ_d,\mu _d,T)F(ϵ_{e^+},\mu _{e^+},T)\left(1F(ϵ_u,\mu _u,T)\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle _{max\{|p_dp_{u_1}|,|p_sp_{u_2}|\}}^{min\{p_d+p_{u_1},p_sp_{u_2}\}}}𝑑P\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_d^2+p_{u_2}^2P^2}{2ϵ_dϵ_{u_2}}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_s^2+p_{u_1}^2P^2}{2ϵ_sϵ_{u_1}}}\right)`$
$`R_{su}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6G_F^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _c}{(2\pi )^5}}{\displaystyle 𝑑p_s𝑑p_{e^+}𝑑p_u𝑑p_\nu p_sp_{e^+}p_up_\nu \delta (ϵ_s+ϵ_{e^+}ϵ_uϵ_\nu )}`$ (20)
$`F(ϵ_s,\mu _s,T)F(ϵ_{e^+},\mu _{e^+},T)\left(1F(ϵ_u,\mu _u,T)\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle _{max\{|p_dp_{u_1}|,|p_sp_{u_2}|\}}^{min\{p_d+p_{u_1},p_sp_{u_2}\}}}𝑑P\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_d^2+p_{u_2}^2P^2}{2ϵ_dϵ_{u_2}}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_s^2+p_{u_1}^2P^2}{2ϵ_sϵ_{u_1}}}\right)`$
$`R_{ud}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6G_F^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _c}{(2\pi )^5}}{\displaystyle 𝑑p_d𝑑p_{e^+}𝑑p_u𝑑p_\nu p_dp_{e^+}p_up_\nu \delta (ϵ_u+ϵ_e^{}ϵ_dϵ_\nu )}`$ (23)
$`F(ϵ_u,\mu _u,T)F(ϵ_e^{},\mu _e^{},T)\left(1F(ϵ_d,\mu _d,T)\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle _{max\{|p_dp_{u_1}|,|p_sp_{u_2}|\}}^{min\{p_d+p_{u_1},p_sp_{u_2}\}}}𝑑P\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_d^2+p_{u_2}^2P^2}{2ϵ_dϵ_{u_2}}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_s^2+p_{u_1}^2P^2}{2ϵ_sϵ_{u_1}}}\right)`$
$`R_{us}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6G_F^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _c}{(2\pi )^5}}{\displaystyle 𝑑p_s𝑑p_{e^+}𝑑p_u𝑑p_\nu p_sp_{e^+}p_up_\nu \delta (ϵ_u+ϵ_e^{}ϵ_sϵ_\nu )}`$ (26)
$`F(ϵ_u,\mu _u,T)F(ϵ_e^{},\mu _e^{},T)\left(1F(ϵ_s,\mu _s,T)\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle _{max\{|p_dp_{u_1}|,|p_sp_{u_2}|\}}^{min\{p_d+p_{u_1},p_sp_{u_2}\}}}𝑑P\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_d^2+p_{u_2}^2P^2}{2ϵ_dϵ_{u_2}}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_s^2+p_{u_1}^2P^2}{2ϵ_sϵ_{u_1}}}\right).`$
Here the Fermi distribution function F ensures that the particles before the reaction are in the Fermi sea and the produced particles are above the Fermi sea. The constants $`G_F`$ and $`\theta _c`$ are the weak interaction ( Fermi ) constant and Cabibo angle respectively. In the calculation of the reaction rates we have assumed that the neutrinos produced in the reaction leave the reaction region and therefore their chemical potential is taken to be zero. The knowledge of the reaction rates allows us to compute the rate of change of densities of various particle species:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\rho _d}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`R_{sd}R_{ds}+R_{ud}R_{du}`$ (27)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\rho _u}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`R_{du}R_{ud}+R_{su}R_{us}`$ (28)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\rho _s}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`R_{sd}+R_{ds}+R_{us}R_{su}`$ (29)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\rho _e^{}}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`R_{du}R_{ud}+R_{su}R_{us}.`$ (30)
In addition, the internal energy of the system as well as its pressure changes as the matter evolves towards chemical equilibrium. There is a slight decrease in the pressure and that is because the equilibration process increases the degrees of freedom ( addition of s quarks! ). The decrease in the internal energy is because the escaping neutrinos carry energy. The rate of change of the internal energy is given by the neutrino emissivities $`ϵ_\nu `$ and $`ϵ_{\overline{\nu }}`$ which are essentially the equations similar to the rate equations above with the neutrino ( antineutrino ) energy included in the momentum integrations. In the rate equations above, $`\rho _e^{}`$ implies the difference of electron and positron densities. It is straight forward to verify that baryon number and charge conservation is satisfied by these equations.

Given the reaction rates and the neutrino emissivities at time $`t`$, one can compute the number densities of different species and the total internal energy after a later time interval $`t+dt`$. The temperature and chemical potentials of different species at this instant of time can be determined from the number densities and internal energy by assuming thermal equilibrium. From these one can compute new rates at time $`t+dt`$. Hence the evolution of the constituents of the quark matter as a function of time can be obtained numerically. The computation is carried out till the chemical equilibrium is reached, that is when the chemical potentials of d and s quarks become equal or when the strangeness fraction ( defined as the ratio of strangeness density to baryon density ) saturates.

In addition to the evolution of number densities of different species one would like to know the number of neutrinos emitted and the energy carried by the neutrinos during the equilibration process. These are obtained by integrating the reaction rates and neutrino emissivities:

$`n_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑t(R_{ud}(t)+R_{us}(t))}`$ (31)
$`n_{\overline{\nu }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑t(R_{du}(t)+R_{su}(t))}`$ (32)
$`E_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑t(ϵ_{ud}(t)+ϵ_{us}(t))}`$ (33)
$`E_{\overline{\nu }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑t(ϵ_{du}(t)+ϵ_{su}(t))},`$ (34)
where $`ϵ(t)`$ is the neutrino emissivity computed by including the neutrino energy in the integration defining the corresponding reaction rate. Note that after the chemical equilibrium is reached, the reaction rates for forward and backward reactions are equal ( $`R_{ud}(t)=R_{du}(t)`$ and $`R_{us}(t)=R_{su}(t)`$ ). Therefore, although the densities of different quark species does not change after chemical equilibration, the neutrino emission still continues. This is essentially thermal emission of neutrinos and is actually responsible for the cooling of the star. We continue our calculation for $`10^4`$ sec, which we find is much larger than the chemical equilibration time.

## III Results

The calculations described in the previous section have been performed for a number of initial conditions ( baryon density, temperature and strangeness content etc). In addition, computations have been performed for two different models of the quark matter. One is the bag model in which the masses of u, d and s quarks are 0, 0 and 150 MeV respectively. The other is the chiral colour dielectric ( CCD ) model where these masses are 100, 100 and 210 MeV. In some sense, the bag model represents a situation when one has asymptotic freedom and therefore the quark masses are the current quark masses. The quark masses in CCD model are closer to the ( relativistic ) constituent quark masses. Since the lattice calculations indicate that at the phase transition, the interaction between the quarks is substantial it is reasonable to expect that the quark masses just after the phase transition are closer to constituent masses. Thus, the actual situation is expected to be between the results of the bag and CCD models. We find that the qualitative behavior of the results for different initial conditions is quite similar. We have therefore considered one set of the results of our calculation for detailed discussion. The behavior of the temperature, strangeness fraction and reaction rates is displayed in Fig(2). The calculation has been done for initial quark matter temperature of 10 MeV and baryon density of $`3\times \rho _{NM}`$. The strangeness fraction at the time of quark matter formation is assumed to be zero. The lower panel of Fig(2) shows the evolution of temperature and strangeness fraction and the upper panel shows the different reaction rates as a function of time.

The results in Fig(2) show that the chemical equilibrium is reached in a very short time ( less than $`10^7`$ seconds ). This time period, being of the order of typical weak interaction time scale, should not be surprising. But the important thing is, it is much smaller than the typical time scales of supernova collapse or initial evolution of the proto-neutron star. The chemical equilibration time is more or less same for the bag and CDM models. Thus, we can conclude that, if the quark matter is formed in neutron stars, the chemical equilibrium in the quark matter will be reached very quickly, in a time scale much shorter than the time scales of the evolution of neutron stars. As expected, the value of the strangeness fraction is close to unity when the chemical equilibrium is reached. We have not shown the results beyond $`10^7`$ sec since the formation of the quark matter because by this time the chemical equilibrium has already been reached. This one can see from the fact that the strangeness fraction becomes constant.

The calculations show that the temperature of the quark matter rises sharply during the chemical equilibration process and reaches the peak value in about $`10^8`$ sec. At that stage, the strangeness fraction has reached about 80 % of its saturation value. Depending on the initial temperature and, to some extent on the model, the increase in the temperature of the quark matter is between 30 and 40 MeV. Thus, the reactions leading to chemical equilibration of quark matter are exothermic. As discussed earlier, the rise in the temperature is because the d quarks having large momenta and kinetic energies are converted to s quarks. Since the s quark chemical potential is small to begin with, their energy is used up in heating of the quark matter. Note that beyond $`10^8`$ seconds, the temperature of the quark matter starts dropping. This decrease is because the neutrinos emitted in semi-leptonic weak reactions carry away the energy from the quark matter and as a result there is cooling of the matter. Neutrino emission is believed to be the most efficient process for the cooling of neutron stars when the temperatures are larger than 1 MeV. We do find that the neutrino emission leads to a rapid cooling of the quark matter. The calculations, when continued to larger time, show that the the temperature of the quark matter drops to 10 MeV or lower in $`10^4`$ seconds.

The top panel of the figure shows different reaction rates. The rate for $`d+us+u`$ is the largest and clearly dominates the equilibration process. On the other hand, the reaction rates of semi-leptonic weak reactions are smaller by more than an order of magnitude. This means that the chemical equilibrium in the quark matter is primarily reached by the conversion of d quarks to s quarks. After $`10^8`$ seconds from the formation of quark matter, the reaction rates of $`ds`$ and $`sd`$ reactions become almost equal. This implies that the d and s quark chemical potentials have become almost equal but this does not yet imply chemical equilibration. However, the chemical equilibrium is soon established. As mentioned earlier, the weak reactions continue after the chemical equilibration without altering the composition of the quark matter. One important point, however, is that the semi-leptonic reactions, which contribute to the production of neutrinos, continue after equilibration. These reactions gives rise to copious production of neutrinos as well as cooling of the matter because of the loss of the energy from the quark matter to the produced neutrinos.

It is clear from the reaction rates that the semi-leptonic reactions play only a minor role in the process of chemical equilibration as such. Never the less, these reactions do take place during the chemical equilibration process and after words. As discussed above, this leads to a release of energy from the quark matter in the form of neutrinos. In order to get some idea about the number of neutrinos emitted and the energy carried by them, we have plotted the number of neutrinos/baryon and energy/baryon emitted since the start of the equilibration process in Figure(3). This figure shows that about 0.03 neutrinos/baryon are emitted during the chemical equilibration and the per baryon energy released in neutrinos is about 3 MeV. That means the average energy carried by the neutrinos is of the order of 100 MeV. Thus, although the number of neutrinos is not large, the energy carried away by these neutrinos is quite substantial. Further, the neutrino emission continues after equilibration and a lot more neutrinos are emitted. For example, by $`10^6`$ seconds since the beginning of the equilibration process, about 1 neutrino/baryon is emitted and the average energy carried by these neutrinos is larger than 50 MeV. Since the cooling of the quark matter is immediately followed by the chemical equilibration, one can argue that during the quark matter formation and subsequent chemical equilibration large number of neutrinos are produced and enormous amount of energy in form of neutrino kinetic energy is released. Implication of this on dense stellar objects will be discussed in the following Section.

## IV Dense Stellar Objects

The study of the constitution of the dense stellar objects has attracted considerable amount of attention recently. Apart from the fact that these objects ( neutron stars, proto-neutron stars etc ) constitute the test bodies for the theory of general relativity, the matter in the interior of these objects is at extremely high density. For example, typical neutron star has mass larger than solar mass, radius of about 10 km and the density in the interior exceeding the saturation density of nuclear matter ( $`\rho _{NM}`$ ). In a broader perspective, heavy ion collisions, neutron stars and early universe correspond to the different regions of the phase diagram of the matter at extreme densities and temperatures. For example, in neutron stars the matter is found at very low density at the surface and very high ( 5-10 times $`\rho _{NM}`$  ) in the core. In heavy ion collisions also, the nuclear matter is probed at varying densities. The main difference between the two is that in neutron stars, the matter is at temperature smaller than the baryon chemical potential where as in heavy ion collisions, the temperature is generally much larger. Thus, the study of heavy ion collisions and neutron stars is complementary and one may use inferences drawn in one field in the investigation of the other field.

Long time ago, Baade and Zwicky  had suggested that neutron stars may be formed in supernova explosions. They had proposed that when the mass of the iron core of a massive star exceeds the Chandrasekhar limit, it would start collapsing. During the collapse, a large amount of gravitational energy would be released, which blows away the mantle of the star and the collapsed core may form a neutron star. In this mechanism, the maximum mass of neutron stars should exceed 1.4$`M_{}`$. By now it is understood that the neutron stars are indeed formed after supernova collapse if the mass of pre-supernova star is not too large. The evolution of the stellar object from pre-supernova stage to proto-neutron star and later into a neutron star has been studied in details. The constitution of neutron stars has also been studied using different equations of state of the nuclear matter. These studies indicate that the baryon density in the cores of proto-neutron stars as well as neutron stars could be several times $`\rho _{NM}`$. This implies that the cores of these objects are likely to consist of exotic states of nuclear matter such as strange matter, kaon condensate, quark matter etc. In this paper we are considering the last possibility, namely the formation of quark matter. As discussed in the Introduction, the lattice calculations as well as the recent experiments at CERN seem to indicate that the quark matter is likely to be formed when the energy density of the hot, low baryon density matter reaches 600 $`MeV/fm^3`$ or more. We extrapolate this result to cold and dense nuclear matter and assume that the quark matter is formed when the energy density reaches 600 $`MeV/fm^3`$. This energy density is reached when the baryon number density is between 0.5 and 0.8 $`fm^3`$ which corresponds to 3-5 $`\times \rho _{NM}`$.

An estimate of the amount of matter in the neutron star that is converted to quark matter can be obtained as follows. The properties of neutron stars without rotation are computed by solving the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equation,which is essentially an equation for hydrostatic equilibrium in the star. The solution of TOV equation requires the equation of state of the matter. Using a variety of nuclear equations of state the TOV equation has been solved and the properties of neutron stars computed. One of the result of these calculations is the variation of nuclear density (density profile) and star mass (mass profile) as a function of the distance from the center of the star for a given initial value of central density. In the example considered here, we choose the central density of seven times nuclear matter density. In Fig(4) density and mass profile for a soft (incompressibility, K=120 MeV) and a hard (incompressibility, K=224 MeV) equations of state has been plotted.

Assuming that the phase transition to quark matter takes place when the matter density increases above $`0.7fm^3`$, which is about $`4\times \rho _{NM}`$, we have drawn a horizontal line at $`4\times \rho _{NM}`$. This line intersects baryon density profile curves for soft and hard equations of state at ( about ) 6 and 8 kilometers respectively. The matter inside this radius undergoes transition to,quark matter and therefore the total amount of matter in quark matter phase is about 0.5 and 1.2 solar masses respectively. We have checked this estimate for a number of nuclear matter equations of state and different central densities. We find that generally the estimate of the amount of quark matter for all these calculations is in this range. Thus it is reasonable to assume that, if the quark matter is formed in the core of the neutron stars, its amount is expected to be larger than 0.5 solar mass. We shall choose this number for the further discussion.

As discussed in the preceding sections, the hadron-quark phase transition and subsequent chemical equilibration is a rapid process ( time scale of $`10^7`$ sec or so ) and therefore the quark matter would be formed immediately after the formation of the neutron star. One of the consequences of the transition is that the temperature of the quark matter increases by 30-40 MeV during equilibration. The matter then cools very quickly ( $`10^4`$ sec ) by emitting neutrinos. During this process about 1 neutrino per baryon is emitted and the average energy carried by the neutrinos is more than 50 MeV. All this occurs within a millisecond from the time when the phase transition takes place. Assuming that the mass content of the quark matter is 0.5 solar mass, the total number of baryons in the quark matter is about $`10^{57}`$. This means that roughly $`10^{57}`$ neutrinos will be liberated very soon after the phase transition. The energy carried by these neutrinos will be more than $`5\times 10^{58}`$ MeV or $`8\times 10^{52}`$ ergs.

The neutrinos produced soon after the hadron-quark transition in the core of the star diffuse out to the surface. During this process their numbers are expected to increase ( possibly ) by a factor of 10 during their propagation from the core of the star to its surface. Thus the conservative estimate of the number of neutrinos percolating out from the star would be $`10^{58}`$ or larger. Note that this number is of the order of the neutrinos emitted by standard nuclear $`\beta `$ decay processes during the collapse of the white dwarf. In other words, if the quark-hadron phase transition takes place in a neutron star, the number of neutrinos emitted will be larger by a factor of 2 or more.

One of the mechanisms for the supernova explosion is the reheating of the mantle of the star by out-streaming neutrinos which gives an extra outward push to the shock wave which is stalled. If the quark matter formation takes place immediately following the supernova collapse, the neutrinos produced during the quark matter formation will add to the neutrinos produced during the collapse and this would add to the reheating of the mantle and therefore facilitate the supernova explosion. Further more, the amount of energy carried by these neutrinos is quite large, since on the average, these neutrinos carry 50 MeV of energy. A crude estimate indicates that this energy will be about $`8\times 10^{52}`$ ergs or more, which is, again, comparable to the energy emitted during the supernova collapse. Actually, it is not surprising that such a huge amount of energy is liberated during quark matter formation. In the standard supernova mechanism, the energy release is primarily due to nuclear reactions and the gravitational energy. This energy release is expected to be few tens of MeV/nucleon, a typical energy scale of nuclear physics. In case of quark matter formation, the energy released is related to the difference in chemical potentials of d and s quarks. At the beginning of the quark matter formation, this difference is few hundreds of MeV. As a result, the neutrinos produced during the chemical equilibration of the quark matter carry such a large amount of energy.

At this point, one may note that there is a possibility of formation of colour superconductivity in the quark matter if the temperature of the core is sufficiently small. Estimates indicate that the superconducting gap is expected to be $``$ 50 MeV and the colour superconducting temperature is of the same order. In that case, the interaction of neutrinos with the quarks will be suppressed as that would require breaking of the colour-superconducting pair. This would mean that the quark matter would be transparent to the neutrinos and as a result, the neutrinos produced during strangeness production and subsequent cooling will be able to leave the quark core in a short time. The details of the propagation of neutrinos in such media need to be investigated in details.

It is suggested that the recent discovery of afterglow in Gamma Ray Bursters (GRB) occur at very high redshifts ($`z`$ 1) and these imply a huge amount of energy release of $`10^{53}`$ ergs. For example, GRB 971214 and GRB 990123  have the measured redshifts of 3.42 and 1.6 with a energy output of $`3\times 10^{53}`$ erg and $`3.4\times 10^{54}`$ ergs respectively. Such enormous energies can be produced by different mechanisms. One such possible mechanism of producing huge energies is the merger of two neutron stars, eventually forming black hole. The rate of neutron star merger can be calculated from abundance of binary pulsars, which is compatible with the rate of GRB of approximately one per day. Another possible mechanism for GRB is the conversion of a neutron star to a strange star. Recently, Bombaci and Datta  proposed that the total amount of energy liberated in the conversion is in the range of 1-4 $`\times 10^{53}`$ erg, which is in agreement with GRB sources at cosmological distances. In the conversion of ud- matter to uds- matter, in our calculation the chemical equilibrium is reached around $`10^7`$ seconds. During this process, enormous amount of energy in the order of 100 MeV per baryon  is released and copious numbers of neutrinos are produced. The energy is released and carried away mainly by the neutrinos and this energy will be about $`10^{53}`$ erg and more, which is again comparable to GRB. If, by some mechanism, the neutrino energy is converted into $`\gamma `$ ray energy, one may be able to explain the GRB’s in terms of possible hadron-quark phase transition occurring during the formation of neutron stars. However, a detailed discussion on this is beyond the scope of this paper.

## V Conclusions

To conclude, we have argued that the nuclear matter having densities larger than 3-5 $`\times \rho _{NM}`$ is likely to undergo phase transition from nuclear to quark matter. We have shown that after hadron-quark phase transition, the quark matter is not in chemical equilibrium in the beginning. The process of chemical equilibration, which is achieved by weak interactions, leads to production of s quarks. The dominant reaction for the equilibration is the nonleptonic weak process which converts d quarks into s quarks, although semi-leptonic weak processes also occur during and after chemical equilibration. The equilibration reaction is exothermic and therefore the temperature of the quark matter rises by 30-40 MeV during the equilibration. A large numbers of neutrinos are produced during and soon after the chemical equilibrium is reached. These neutrinos carry substantial amount of energy and therefore they are responsible for the cooling of the quark matter. We argue that, since the nuclear densities in neutron stars are several times $`\rho _{NM}`$, it is very much likely that the quark matter is formed in the cores of these stars. The quark matter is expected to be formed during the supernova collapse. We then conclude that the large number of neutrinos that are produced during and after the formation of quark matter in these cores will add to the neutrinos that are produced during the supernova collapse. These neutrinos may add to the reheating of the mantle of the star and help in the supernova explosion.