Imagine a neutron star, constituted of nucleons ($p$, $n$) and charged leptons (say $e$ and $\mu$), can decay into a deconfined quark star through some process. Given the Bodmer-Witten hypothesis, the deconfined quark matter might be stable if a sufficient amount of strangeness (i.e., $s$ quarks) is present, so
- Given the nucleon-lepton matter of the initial state, what processes (like decays or collisions) can produce the needed strangeness?
Neutron star matter, at $T=0$, must have charge neutrality and chemical equilibrium enforced, but of course this conversion process to the deconfined quark mater will not preserve the particle fractions due the arising of $s$ quarks, so the chemical equilibrium is (at least temporarily) lost, but
- What one can say about the particle fractions on this second state? Most importantly, the charge neutrality of the neutron star matter impose the charge neutrality of the quark matter?
I want to consider this hypothetical process to be static, i.e., without accretion or loss of the particles on the star in such way at least the baryonic number are conserved, and in the zero-temperature limit.
Here one can see an article which motivated these questions (but I don't want to consider only the nucleation process nor, for obvious reasons, the flavor conservation imposition).
