Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 341
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50380-3

Regular Article

A theory of finite-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates in neutron stars

¹ Institut für Theoretische Physik, Freie Universität Berlin, Arnimallee 14, 14195 Berlin, Germany
² Institut für Physik, Universität Oldenburg, Carl-von-Ossietzky-Str. 9-11, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
³ Fachbereich Physik und Forschungszentrum OPTIMAS, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Strasse 46, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany

^a e-mail: christine.gruber@uni-oldenburg.de

Received: 13 May 2014
Received in final form: 7 September 2014
Published online: 6 November 2014

Abstract

We investigate the possible occurrence of a Bose-Einstein condensed phase of matter within neutron stars due to the formation of Cooper pairs among the superfluid neutrons. To this end we study the condensation of bosonic particles under the influence of both a short-range contact and a long-range gravitational interaction in the framework of a Hartree-Fock theory. We consider a finite-temperature scenario, generalizing existing approaches, and derive macroscopic and astrophysically relevant quantities like a mass limit for neutron stars.