Quark matter in massive compact stars

Abstract

The recent observation of the pulsar PSR J1614-2230 with a mass of 1.97 ± 0.04M ∞ gives a strong constraint on the quark and nuclear matter equations of state (EoS). We explore the parameter ranges for a parameterized EoS for quark stars. We find that strange stars, made of absolutely stable strange quark matter, comply with the new constraint only if effects from the strong coupling constant and color-superconductivity are taken into account. Hybrid stars, compact stars with a quark matter core and a hadronic outer layer, can be as massive as 2M ∞, but only for a significantly limited range of parameters. We demonstrate that the appearance of quark matter in massive stars crucially depends on the stiffness of the nuclear matter EoS. We show that the masses of hybrid stars stay below the ones of hadronic and pure quark stars, due to the softening of the EoS at the quark-hadron phase transition. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.