Strange star

A strange star is a quark star made of strange quark matter. They form a subgroup under the quark star category.[1]

Strange stars might exist without regard of the Bodmer–Witten assumption of stability at near-zero temperatures and pressures, as strange quark matter might form and remain stable at the core of neutron stars, in the same way as ordinary quark matter could.[2] Such strange stars will naturally have a crust layer of neutron star material. The depth of the crust layer will depend on the physical conditions and circumstances of the entire star and on the properties of strange quark matter in general.[3] Stars partially made up of quark matter (including strange quark matter) are also referred to as hybrid stars.[4][5][6][7]

This theoretical strange star crust is proposed to be a possible reason behind the ever mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBs). While this is of course still theoretical; there is good evidence the researchers from this paper provide that point to the collapse of these strange star crusts to be a possible FRB point of origin.

For said crust to collapse from a strange star it must accrete matter from its environment in some form. This release of even small amounts of its matter cause a cascading effect on the stars crust. Which is thought to result in a massive release of magnetic energy as well as electron and positron pairs; in the initial first stages of the collapsing stage. This release of high energy particles and magnetic energy in such a short period of time causes the newly released electron/positron pairs to be directed towards the poles of the strange star due to the increased magnetic energy created by the initial secretion of the strange stars matter. Once these electron/positron pairs are directed to the poles they are then ejected at relativistic velocities, which is then believed to be one of the causes to what astronomers in the past 11 years of observing this phenomenon known as FRBs could be.

[8] Original scientific paper source [9] Simpler breakdown of said scientific paper.


Theoretical investigations have revealed that quark stars might not only be produced from neutron stars and powerful supernovae, they could also be created in the early cosmic phase separations following the Big Bang.[10] If these primordial quark stars transform into strange quark matter before the external temperature and pressure conditions of the early universe makes them unstable, they might turn out stable, if the Bodmer–Witten assumption holds true. Such primordial strange stars could survive to this day.[10]

Characteristics

Recent theoretical research has found mechanisms by which quark stars with "strange quark nuggets" may decrease the objects' electric fields and densities from previous theoretical expectations, causing such stars to appear very much like—nearly indistinguishable from—ordinary neutron stars. This suggests that many, or even all, known neutron stars might in fact be strange stars. However, the investigating team of Prashanth Jaikumar, Sanjay Reddy, and Andrew W. Steiner made some fundamental assumptions that led to uncertainties in their results large enough that the case is not finally settled. More research, both observational and theoretical, remains to be done on strange stars in the future.[11]

Other theoretical work contends that: "A sharp interface between quark matter and the vacuum would have very different properties from the surface of a neutron star"; and, addressing key parameters like surface tension and electrical forces that were neglected in the original study, the results show that as long as the surface tension is below a low critical value, the large strangelets are indeed unstable to fragmentation and strange stars naturally come with complex strangelet crusts, analogous to those of neutron stars.[12]

References

  1. ↑ Fridolin Weber; et al. (1994). Strange-matter Stars. Proceedings: Strangeness and Quark Matter. World Scientific. Bibcode:1994sqm..symp....1W.
  2. ↑ Stuart L. Shapiro; Saul A. Teukolsky (20 November 2008). Black Holes, White Dwarfs, and Neutron Stars: The Physics of Compact Objects. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 2–. ISBN 978-3-527-61767-8.
  3. ↑ Kodama Takeshi; Chung Kai Cheong; Duarte Sergio Jose Barbosa (1 March 1990). Relativistic Aspects Of Nuclear Physics - Rio De Janeiro International Workshop. #N/A. pp. 241–. ISBN 978-981-4611-69-5.
  4. ↑ Alford, Mark G; Han, Sophia; Prakash, Madappa (2013). "Generic conditions for stable hybrid stars". Physical Review D. 88 (8). arXiv:1302.4732. Bibcode:2013PhRvD..88h3013A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.88.083013.
  5. ↑ Goyal, Ashok (2004). "Hybrid stars". Pramana. 62 (3): 753. arXiv:hep-ph/0303180. Bibcode:2004Prama..62..753G. doi:10.1007/BF02705363.
  6. ↑ Benić, Sanjin; Blaschke, David; Alvarez-Castillo, David E; Fischer, Tobias; Typel, Stefan (2015). "A new quark-hadron hybrid equation of state for astrophysics". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 577: A40. arXiv:1411.2856. Bibcode:2015A&A...577A..40B. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201425318.
  7. ↑ Alvarez-Castillo, D; Benic, S; Blaschke, D; Han, Sophia; Typel, S (2016). "Neutron star mass limit at 2M⊙ supports the existence of a CEP". The European Physical Journal A. 52 (8). arXiv:1608.02425. Bibcode:2016EPJA...52..232A. doi:10.1140/epja/i2016-16232-9.
  8. ↑ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.04448.pdf
  9. ↑ https://www.universal-sci.com/headlines/2018/5/19/are-mysterious-fast-radio-bursts-coming-from-the-collapse-of-strange-star-crusts
  10. 1 2 Witten, Edward (1984). "Cosmic separation of phases". Physical Review D. 30 (2): 272. Bibcode:1984PhRvD..30..272W. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.30.272.
  11. ↑ Jaikumar, P; Reddy, S; Steiner, A. W (2006). "Strange star surface: A crust with nuggets". Physical Review Letters. 96 (4): 041101. arXiv:nucl-th/0507055. Bibcode:2006PhRvL..96d1101J. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.041101. PMID 16486800.
  12. ↑ Alford, Mark G; Rajagopal, Krishna; Reddy, Sanjay; Steiner, Andrew W (2006). "Stability of strange star crusts and strangelets". Physical Review D. 73 (11). arXiv:hep-ph/0604134. Bibcode:2006PhRvD..73k4016A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.73.114016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.