Mixed phases of compact star matter in a unified mean-field approach

Xia, C.-J.*; Maruyama, Toshiki  ; Yasutake, Nobutoshi*; Tatsumi, Toshitaka*

Based on an extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model that treats baryons as clusters of quarks, we investigate the properties and microscopic structures of mixed phases for various types of first-order phase transitions in a unified manner, where the model parameters are fixed by reproducing nuclear matter properties and the binding energies of finite nuclei. In particular, based on the Thomas-Fermi approximation, we investigate the mixed phases that arise from the liquid-gas phase transition of nuclear matter, chiral phase transition, and deconfinement phase transition in dense stellar matter adopting spherical and cylindrical approximations for the Wigner-Seitz cells. It is found that the geometrical structures do not emerge for the chiral phase transition, while the droplet, rod, slab, tube, and bubble phases emerge sequentially as density increases for the liquid-gas and deconfinement phase transitions. Additional attractive interactions between strange quark matter and hyperons are observed as the deconfinement phase transition is entangled with the chiral phase transition of quarks. The results obtained here should be useful to understand the properties and structures of dense stellar matter throughout compact stars and, in particular, the matter state in the core regions. Meanwhile, more extensive investigations in a three-dimensional geometry with large box sizes are necessary for our future study.