THE ROLE OF ANTIKAON CONDENSATES IN THE ISOSPIN ASYMMETRY OF NEUTRON STARS

Abstract

We study the effects of the scalar-isovector light mesons on the isospin asymmetry and phase transition of hadronic matter to hadronic matter with a condensate of antikaons, using an effective model with derivative couplings. In our formalism, nucleons interact through the exchange of σ, ω, ϱ, δ, and ς mesons in the presence of electrons and muons to accomplish electric charge neutrality and beta equilibrium. The phase transition to the antikaons condensate was implemented through the Gibbs conditions combined with the mean-field approximation, giving rise to a mixed phase of coexistence between nucleon matter and the condensed antikaons. As expected, our results indicate that the scalar-isovector mesons increase the range of the mixed phase–space, they operate for restoring isospin symmetry and they reduce the value of the effective nucleon mass, independently of the depth of the optical potential for antikaons. Also as expected the increase of the depth of optical potential favors the population of antikaons. Our results predict the density threshold of birth of the K-antikaons. The most expressive result of our calculation is the abrupt change in the isospin asymmetry due to the presence of the condensate. Moreover, we have found that scalar-isovector mesons increase the fraction of protons and reduced the fraction of neutrons in the system, since these mesons couple with the conserved isovector current of baryons and thus the minimum in the energy of the system corresponds to saturated isospin states (symmetric in isospin). Finally, we have found as expected that these mesons produce the stiffness of the EoS.