Kaon Condensation and Enforced Charge Neutrality of the Color-Flavor Locked Phase

Abstract

We investigate the influence of charged kaon condensation in hadronic sector on the formation of the electron-free charge neutral quark matter of equipartition of three light flavors, i.e., a phenomenon called ``enforced electrical neutrality" of the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase. We employ the chiral quark model which is assumed to be applicable, "bottom-up," toward chiral restoration while accessible to kaon condensation in the hadronic sector. Approaching "bottom-up" the high density regime is more appropriate in addressing the properties of compact stars than approaching "top-down" from asymptotic QCD. It turns out that the presence of hadronic kaon condensation makes the electron-free charge-neutral CFL phase energetically more favorable with a relatively small color-superconducting gap $\Delta_0\sim 20$ MeV compared to $\Delta_0\sim 70$ MeV required in the absence of such kaon condensation.