Vector meson condensation in a pion superfluid

Abstract

We revisit the suggestion that charged rho-mesons undergo Bose-Einstein condensation in isospin-rich nuclear matter. Using a simple version of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model, we conclude that rho-meson condensation is either avoided or postponed to isospin chemical potentials much higher than the rho-meson mass as a consequence of the repulsive interaction with the preformed pion condensate. In order to support our numerical results, we work out a linear sigma model for pions and rho-mesons, showing that the two models lead to similar patterns of medium dependence of meson masses. As a byproduct, we analyze in detail the mapping between the NJL model and the linear sigma model, focusing on conditions that must be satisfied for a quantitative agreement between the models.