Dark matter, neutron stars, and strange quark matter

We show that self-annihilating weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter accreted onto neutron stars may provide a mechanism to seed compact objects with long-lived lumps of strange quark matter, or strangelets, for WIMP masses above a few GeV. This effect may trigger a conversion of most of the star into a strange star. We use an energy estimate for the long-lived strangelet based on the Fermi-gas model combined with the MIT bag model to set a new limit on the possible values of the WIMP mass that can be especially relevant for subdominant species of massive neutralinos.     

One-gluon-exchange effect on the properties of quark matter and strange stars

We present a modified version of quark mass scaling via considering the important one-gluon-exchange interaction between quarks in the quark mass density-dependent model. The properties of strange quark matter and the structure of strange stars are then studied with the new scaling and a self-consistent thermodynamic treatment. It is found that the one-gluon-exchange effect lowers the system energy considerably, makes the equation of state stiffer, and the sound velocity tends to the ultra-relativistic value faster, which make the biggest value of the maximum mass of strange stars become as big as approximately 2 times the solar mass, in accordance with the latest astronomical observations.     

Bulk viscosity of strange quark matter in density dependent quark mass model

We have studied the bulk viscosity of strange quark matter in the density dependent quark mass model (DDQM) and compared results with calculations done earlier in the MIT bag model where u, d masses were neglected and first order interactions were taken into account. We find that at low temperatures and high relative perturbations, the bulk viscosity is higher by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude while at low perturbations the enhancement is by 1–2 order of magnitude as compared to earlier results. Also the damping time is 2–3 orders of magnitude lower implying that the star reaches stability much earlier than in MIT bag model calculations.     

Phase structures of neutral dense quark matter and applicationto strange stars

In the contact interaction model,the quark propagator has only one solution,namely,the chiral symmetry breaking solution,at vanishing temperature and density in the case of physical quark mass.We generalize the condensate feedback onto the coupling strength from the 2 flavor case to the 2+1 flavor case,and find the Wigner solution appears in some regions,which enables us to tackle chiral phase transition as two-phase coexistences.At finite chemical potential,we analyze the chiral phase transition in the conditions of electric charge neutrality andβequilibrium.The four chemical potentials,μ_u,μ_d,μ_s and He,are constrained by three conditions,so that one inde-pendent variable remains:we choose the average quark chemical potential as the free variable.All quark masses and number densities suffer discontinuities at the phase transition point.The strange quarks appear after the phase trans-ition since the system needg more energy to produce a d.-quark than an s-quark.Taking the EOS as an input,the TOV equations are solved numerically,and we show that the mass--radius relation is sensitive to the EOS.The max-imum mass of strange quark stars is not susceptible to the parameter Aq we introduced.     

Bulk viscosity for interacting strange quark matter and r-mode instability windows for strange stars

We investigate the bulk viscosity of strange quark matter in the framework of the equivparticle model,where analytical formulae are obtained for certain temperature ranges,which can be readily applied to those with various quark mass scalings.In the case of adopting a quark mass scaling with both linear confinement and perturbative interactions,the obtained bulk viscosity increases by 1-2 orders of magnitude compared with those in bag model scenarios.Such an enhancement is mainly due to the large quark equivalent masses adopted in the equivparticle model,which are essentially attributed to the strong interquark interactions and are related to the dynamical chiral symmetry breaki ng.Due to the high bulk viscosity,the predicted damping time of oscillatio ns for a can on ical 1.4 M⊙ strange star is less than one millisecond,which is shorter than previous findings.Consequently,the obtained r-mode instability window for the canonical strange stars well accommodates the observational frequencies and temperatures for pulsars in low-mass X-ray binaries(LMXBs).     

Quark core stars,quark stars and strange stars

A recent one flavor (zero temperature) quark matter equation of state is generalized to several flavors. It is shown that quarks undergo a first order phase transition. In addition, this equation of state depends on few parameters, one in the two flavor case, two in the three flavor case, and these parameters can be constrained by phenomenology. This equation of state is then applied to 1) the hadronquark transition in neutron stars and the determination of quark star stability, 2) the investigation of strange matter stability and possible strange star existence.     

Magnetized strange quark matter in a mass-density-dependent model

We investigate the properties of strange quark matter (SQM) in a strong magnetic field with quark confinement by the density dependence of quark masses considering the total baryon number conservation, charge neutrality and chemical equilibrium. It is found that an additional term should appear in the pressure expression to maintain thermodynamic consistency. At fixed density, the energy density of magnetized SQM varies with the magnetic field strength. By increasing the field strength an energy minimum exists located at about 6×10¹⁹ Gauss when the density is fixed at two times the normal nuclear saturation density.     

Radial oscillations of magnetized proto strange stars in temperature- and density-dependent quark mass model

We report on the study of the mass-radius (M–R) relation and the radial oscillations of magnetized proto strange stars. For the quark matter we have employed the very recent modification, the temperature- and density-dependent quark mass model of the well-known density-dependent quark mass model. We find that the effect of magnetic field, both on the maximum mass and radial frequencies, is rather small. Also a proto strange star, whether magnetized or otherwise, is more likely to evolve into a strange star rather than transform into a black hole.     

Bulk viscosity of strange quark matter

We rederive the bulk viscosity of strange quark matter from the dominant reactionu + s ?d + u by taking the effect of temperature and quark-gluon coupling perturbatively to first order in the chemical composition of the quark matter. We also calculate the contribution from the β-decay processes s(d) →u + e + ¯v andu + e → s(d)+ v and show that this contribution has different temperature dependence and can even be larger than the contribution from the former reaction at temperatures of the order of the electron Fermi energy.     

Dark matter heating in strange stars

We study the effect of dark matter heating on the temperature of typical strange star(SS hereafter)(M=1.4 M⊙,R=10 km)in normal phase(NSS hereafter)and in a possible existing colour-flavour locked(CFL)phase(CSS hereafter).For NSS,the influence of dark matter heating is ignored until roughly 107yr.After 107yr,the dark matter heating is dominant that significantly delays the star cooling,which maintains a temperature much higher than that predicted by standard cooling model for old stars.Especially for CSS,the emissivity of dark matter will play a leading role after roughly 104yr,which causes the temperature to rise.This leads to the plateau of surface temperature appearing in～106.5yr which is earlier than that of NSS(～107yr).     

Self-consistently thermodynamic treatment for strange quark matter in the effective mass bag model

In the framework of the effective mass bag model (EMBM) we have performed the thermodynamical treatment for strange quark matter (SQM) self-consistently, which overcomes the inconsistencies in the thermodynamical properties of the system. Because of the existence of the pressure extra term, the SQM equation of state (EOS) becomes stiffer comparing with the one for the original EMBM. It is interesting to find that in our treatment the SQM EOS is almost independent of the strong coupling constant g . In this case the SQM EOS seems to get back to the EOS for the original MIT bag model. However, this treatment still has influence on the EOS for hybrid star matter and the corresponding mass-radius relations. With the increase of the strong coupling constant g , the EOS for hybrid star matter gets obviously stiff. From our treatment we notice that the pressure extra term can make a hybrid star more compact than the one described in the original EMBM and this model is more suitable to describe the hybrid stars with small radii.     

密度依赖口袋常数下奇异物质的热力学自洽处理及其对混合星性质的影响

在MTT口袋模型的基础上采用密度依赖口袋常数,给出了奇异夸克物质的热力学关系,并用于描述奇异夸克物质及混合星内的夸克相,研究了奇异星、混合星的性质.结果表明,密度依赖口袋常数下,奇异夸克物质的压强公式中有一个附加项,而能量密度中则没有,从而保证了系统的热力学自洽性.在新的热力学关系下,奇异夸克物质的状态方程变软,相应的奇异星的引力质量和对应的半径均变小;混合星的状态方程也变软,其质量变小,而对应的半径也变小.说明经热力学自洽处理后该模型对中子星的状态方程及相应的质量-半径关系等都有显著的影响.     

Emission of droplets of strange quark matter in RHIC

We demonstrate that strangeness separates in the quark-hadron coexistence (even atT=0) and prompt kaon emission results in a strong enhancement of thes-quark abundance in the quark phase during the phase transition to hadron matter. Condensation into stabilized droplets of strange quark matter (“strangelets”) does occur during the phase transition. The so formed cool, compact, long-lived clusters could be experimentally observed by their smallZ/A-ratio. If the late quark matter phase is unstable, it should be observable by the delayed, correlated emission of several hyperons.     

Equation of state of nuclear matter and neutron stars in a hadron mass scaling frame

The equation of state for nuclear matter at finite temperature and the properties of neutron stars are studied starting from an effective Lagrangian in the framework of the relativistic mean field theory. We find that the empirical properties of nuclear matter can be reproduced if the medium effects are mainly described in terms of the Brown-Rho mass scaling on top of the Bonn potential used as the underlying bare nucleon-nucleon interaction. In particular a correct symmetry energy at saturation density is obtained. The extrapolation of the equation of state to neutron matter and some predictions for the neutron-star masses are finally discussed and compared with other nucleonic many-body approaches.PACS: 21.65. + f Nuclear matter - 21.30.Fe Forces in hadronic systems and effective interactions - 97.60.Jd Neutron stars