Can a phase transition of nuclear matter to quarks strange matter trigger the explosion of supernovae of type II?

Abstract

It was speculated (Witten, 1984) about the possibility that quarks (u,d,s) strange matter will be the fundamental level of the hadronic matter. If this is true, it seems possible the existence of transitions of exothermic phases of nuclear matter to strange matter. The conditions reached at the nucleus post-bounce epoch for a supernova of type II should be adequate for this process to take place. Assuming the existence of this transition we present the consequences of an explosion under these conditions. We used a gas at a finite temperature as equation of state for the quarks matter, while for the nuclear matter we used the equation of state for free neutrons as also the model of Bethe-Johnson. We conclude that in both situations the process is possible and it may be the responsible for the type II supernova explosions.