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Image Credit: Universe Today
Do the Fastest Spinning Pulsars Contain Quark Matter?
- Neutron stars form when a large star's core collapses, and the atoms collapse under the weight of gravity to form a dense sea of neutrons.
- The equation of state of neutron matter indicates that the upper mass limit for a neutron star should be around 2.2 to 2.6 solar masses.
- Since neutron stars are rotating, we can measure their rate of rotation.
- Some physicists and astronomers have suggested that quarks might break free in a neutron star's dense heart to create a quark star.
- Pulsars, which emit radio pulses, rotate at frequencies that can reveal the minimum density for the object to remain intact.
- Millisecond pulsars can rotate above 700 Hz, and their density in polar regions is higher than near the equator, raising questions of whether the polar areas might contain quark matter.
- A better fit for the fastest pulsars was obtained by comparing a traditional equation of state model to a hybrid model, which included both neutron and quark matter.
- Currently observed millisecond pulsars can be described by the traditional model, but higher rotation frequency indicating quark matter would shift the upper limit to 1,000 rotations a second.
- More millisecond pulsars with a wide range of masses would reveal how rotation frequency varies with mass at the upper limit and which of the two models the data strengthens.
- These findings were published in a research paper titled “Fastest spinning millisecond pulsars: indicators for quark matter in neutron stars?” on arXiv(pre-print server).
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