The surface tension of quark matter plays a crucial role for the possibility of quark matter nucleation during the formation of compact stellar objects , because it determines the nucleation rate and the associated critical size .
However , this quantity is not well known and the theoretical estimates fall within a wide range , \gamma _ { 0 } \approx 5 - 300 { MeV / fm ^ { 2 } } .
We show here that once the equation of state is available one may use a geometrical approach to obtain a numerical value for the surface tension that is consistent with the model approximations adopted .
We illustrate this method within the two-flavor linear \sigma model and the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model with two and three flavors .
Treating these models in the mean-field approximation , we find \gamma _ { 0 } \approx 7 - 30 { MeV / fm ^ { 2 } } .
Such a relatively small surface tension would favor the formation of quark stars and may thus have significant astrophysical implications .
We also investigate how the surface tension decreases towards zero as the temperature is raised from zero to its critical value .