Composition of nuclear matter with light clusters and Bose-Einstein condensation of $\alpha$ particles

Abstract

The Bose-Einstein condensation of $\alpha$ partciles in the multicomponent environment of dilute, warm nuclear matter is studied. We consider the cases of matter composed of light clusters with mass numbers $A\leq 4$ and matter that in addition these clusters contains $\isotope[56]{Fe}$ nuclei. We apply the quasiparticle gas model which treats clusters as bound states with infinite life-time and binding energies independent of temperature and density. We show that the $\alpha$ particles can form a condensate at low temperature $T\le 2$ MeV in such matter in the first case. When the $\isotope[56]{Fe}$ nucleus is added to the composition the cluster abundances are strongly modified at low temperatures, with an important implication that the $\alpha$ condensation at these temperatures is suppressed.