Overview of Crystalline Color Superconductors

Abstract

Inhomogeneous phases may appear when a stress is applied to a system and the system can minimize the free energy breaking the rotational invariance. Various examples are known in Nature of this sort, as the paramagnetic to ferromagnetic phase transition, or the fluid/solid phase transition. If the rotational symmetry is broken down to a discrete symmetry, the system is typically named a crystal. We breifly review crystalline color superconductors, which arise in cold quark matter with mismatched Fermi spheres.

Comments: 4 pages, 1 figure. Proceedings of CSQCD IV, Prerow, Germany