Alford, Han, and Reddy propose a new family of astrophysical objects, which can theoretically exist if quark matter is stable ("the strange matter hypothesis") and the surface tension of quark matter is low enough. In this case, quark matter is not
self bound. At sufficiently low pressure and temperature, it will take the form
of a crystal of positively charged strangelets in a neutralizing background of
electrons. In this case there will exist, in addition to the usual family of
strange stars, a family of low-mass large-radius objects analogous to white
dwarfs, "strangelet dwarfs". Using a generic parametrization of
the equation of state of quark matter, the authors have calculated the mass-radius
relationship of these objects. The paper can be viewed online |
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