Charge Neutrality of the Color-Flavor Locked Phase from the Low Energy Effective Theory

Abstract

We investigate the issue of charge neutrality of the CFL$K^0$ phase of dense quark matter using the low energy effective theory of high density QCD. We show that the local electric and color charge neutrality of the ground state in a homogeneous color superconducting medium follows from its dynamics. We also consider the situation of a spatially inhomogeneous medium, such as may be found in a neutron star core. We find that spatial inhomogeneity results in the generation of electric fields, and positrons/electrons may be present in the ground state. We estimate the concentration of charged leptons in the ground state to be $n_{e}\sim{10^2}{cm}^{-3}$ and consider their influence on the opacity of the medium with respect to the modified photons.