Gapless two-flavor color superconductor

A new, stable gapless two-flavor color superconducting phase that appears under conditions of local charge neutrality and beta-equilibrium is revealed. In this phase, the symmetry of the ground state is the same as in the conventional two-flavor color superconductor. In the low-energy spectrum of this phase, however, there are only two gapped fermionic quasiparticles, and the other four quasiparticles are gapless. The origin and the basic properties of the gapless two-flavor color superconductor are discussed. This phase is a natural candidate for quark matter in cores of compact stars. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.