Pairing effects on spinodal decomposition of asymmetric nuclear matter

We investigate the impact of pairing correlations on the behavior of unstable asymmetric nuclear matter at low temperature. We focus on the relative role of the pairing interaction, coupling nucleons of the same type (neutrons or protons), with respect to the symmetry potential, which enhances the neutron-proton attraction, along the clusterization process driven by spinodal instabilities. This analysis is potentially useful to extract information on the temperature dependence of nuclear pairing and, in general, on the impact of pairing correlations on the properties of clusterised low-density matter, of interest also in the astrophysical context.