Critical temperature of antikaon condensation in nuclear matter

Abstract

We investigate the critical temperature of Bose-Einstein condensation of $K^-$ mesons in neutron star matter. This is studied within the framework of relativistic field theoretical models at finite temperature where nucleon-nucleon and (anti)kaon-nucleon interactions are mediated by the exchange of mesons. The melting of the antikaon condensate is studied for different values of antikaon optical potential depths. We find that the critical temperature of antikaon condensation increases with baryon number density. Further it is noted that the critical temperature is lowered as antikaon optical potential becomes less attractive. We also construct the phase diagram of neutron star matter with $K^-$ condensate.