Strange Baryonic Matter from Chiral Effective Lagrangians

We investigate the existence of bound states of baryons in a kaon condensate using chiral mean field theory. The interactions are described by an effective SU(3)_L x SU(3)_R chiral lagrangian where terms of higher order in density, baryon momentum, and kaon mass are suppressed by powers of the symmetry breaking scale, $\Lambda$. We take up to next to leading order terms ( $n = 2,3,4$ ). We search for infinite baryon number solutions, namely ``strange baryonic matter'', using a Thomas-Fermi approximation for a slowly varying condensate and a lowest order Hartree approximation to describe the many body interactions. For simplicity we study a pure $K^0$ condensate and only neutrons, the lightest baryons in that condensate. We find solutions with neutron number densities, $\rho_n This is consistent with the estimate of the onset of a K-condensate at with $\rho_n$ and for $\rho_n < 7 \rho_0$ (at $\rho_n \simgeq 7 \rho_0$ perturbative expansion is lost) we find $E_b < 150 MeV$ ($E_b < 70 MeV$ for may be too low for this type of matter to appear and persist in the early universe