TY - JOUR
T1 - Charged condensate and helium dwarf stars
AU - Gabadadze, Gregory
AU - Rosen, Rachel A.
PY - 2008/10/1
Y1 - 2008/10/1
N2 - White dwarf stars composed of carbon, oxygen and heavier elements are expected to crystallize as they cool down below certain temperatures. Yet, simple arguments suggest that the helium white dwarf cores may not solidify, mostly because of zero-point oscillations of the helium ions that would dissolve the crystalline structure. We argue that the interior of the helium dwarfs may instead form a macroscopic quantum state in which the charged helium-4 nuclei are in a Bose-Einstein condensate, while the relativistic electrons form a neutralizing degenerate Fermi liquid. We discuss the electric charge screening, and the spectrum of this substance, showing that the bosonic long-wavelength fluctuations exhibit a mass gap. Hence, there is a suppression at low temperatures of the boson contribution to the specific heat - the latter being dominated by the specific heat of the electrons near the Fermi surface. This state of matter may have observational signatures.
AB - White dwarf stars composed of carbon, oxygen and heavier elements are expected to crystallize as they cool down below certain temperatures. Yet, simple arguments suggest that the helium white dwarf cores may not solidify, mostly because of zero-point oscillations of the helium ions that would dissolve the crystalline structure. We argue that the interior of the helium dwarfs may instead form a macroscopic quantum state in which the charged helium-4 nuclei are in a Bose-Einstein condensate, while the relativistic electrons form a neutralizing degenerate Fermi liquid. We discuss the electric charge screening, and the spectrum of this substance, showing that the bosonic long-wavelength fluctuations exhibit a mass gap. Hence, there is a suppression at low temperatures of the boson contribution to the specific heat - the latter being dominated by the specific heat of the electrons near the Fermi surface. This state of matter may have observational signatures.
KW - Cosmological phase transitions
KW - Quantum field theory on curved space
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U2 - 10.1088/1475-7516/2008/10/030
DO - 10.1088/1475-7516/2008/10/030
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:56449093078
SN - 1475-7516
VL - 2008
JO - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
JF - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
IS - 10
M1 - 030
ER -