Color-flavor locked strange quark matter in a strong magnetic field

Abstract

The quark quasiparticle model is extended to study the properties of color-flavor locked strange quark matter at finite chemical potential and in a strong magnetic field. We present a self-consistent thermodynamic treatment by employing a chemical potential dependent bag function. It is found that the magnetized color-flavor-locked (MCFL) matter is more stable than other phases within a proper magnitude of magnetic field. The stability window is graphically shown for the MCFL matter compared with ordinate magnetized matter. The anisotropic structure of MCFL matter is dominated by the magnetic field and almost independent of the energy gaps. A critical maximum magnetic field of about $1.56\times 10^{18}$ G is found, under which MCFL matter is absolutely stable with respect to nuclear matter.