Optically opaque color-flavor locked phase inside compact stars

Abstract

The contribution of thermally excited electron-positron pairs to the bulk properties of the color-flavor locked quark phase inside compact stars is examined. The presence of these pairs causes the photon mean free path to be much smaller than a typical core radius ${(R}_{0}\ensuremath{\simeq}1\mathrm{km})$ for all temperatures above 25 keV so that the photon contribution to the thermal conductivity is much smaller than that of the Nambu-Goldstone bosons. We also find that the electrons and positrons dominate the electrical conductivity, while their contributions to the total thermal energy is negligible.