Phase transition in compact stars: nucleation mechanism and $\gamma$-ray bursts revisited

Abstract

We have revisited the nucleation process based on the Lifshitz-Kagan theory, which is the underlying mechanism of conversion of a pulsar constituted of hadronic matter to a quark star. We have selected appropriate models that have been tested against experimental and observational constraints to restrict the model arbitrariness present in previous investigations. The phase transition pressures and chemical potentials have been identified and afterwards, the tunneling probabilities and the nucleation time were computed. The critical pressures for which the half life of the metastable hadronic phase is one year were obtained. Even with the restrictions imposed to the selection of models, the results remained model dependent, but we found that the tunneling that makes possible the appearance of stable matter requires an overpressure that is practically independent of the quark matter bag constant. Finally, we have confirmed that the nucleation process can be one of the causes of gamma-ray bursts.