Superbursts from Strange Stars
arXiv:astro-ph/0508444 · doi:10.1086/499520
Abstract
Recent models of carbon ignition on accreting neutron stars predict superburst ignition depths that are an order of magnitude larger than observed. We explore a possible solution to this problem, that the compact stars in low mass X-ray binaries that have shown superbursts are in fact strange stars with a crust of normal matter. We calculate the properties of superbursts on strange stars, and the resulting constraints on the properties of strange quark matter. We show that the observed ignition conditions exclude fast neutrino emission in the quark core, for example by the direct Urca process, which implies that strange quark matter at stellar densities should be in a color superconducting state. For slow neutrino emission in the quark matter core, we find that reproducing superburst properties requires a definite relation between three poorly constrained properties of strange quark matter: its thermal conductivity, its slow neutrino emissivity and the energy released by converting a nucleon into strange quark matter.
arXiv comment4 pages, submitted to Ap. J. Lett
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Cited by in corpus (22)
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- Equation of State of a Dense and Magnetized Fermion System
- Quark matter in compact stars?
- Neutron Star Masses and Radii from Quiescent Low-Mass X-ray Binaries
- Heating in the Accreted Neutron Star Ocean: Implications for Superburst Ignition
- Long Type I X-ray Bursts and Neutron Star Interior Physics
- Modern compact star observations and the quark matter equation of state
- Color-Superconducting Gap in the Presence of a Magnetic Field
- Fusion reactions in multicomponent dense matter
- Possible Resonances in the 12C + 12C Fusion Rate and Superburst Ignition
- Electron thermal conductivity owing to collisions between degenerate electrons
- Multi-Zone Models of Superbursts from Accreting Neutron Stars
- Sequential deconfinement of quark flavors in neutron stars
- Rotation at 1122 Hz and the neutron star structure
- Paramagnetism in color superconductivity and compact stars
- Compact strange stars with a medium dependence in gluons at finite temperature
- A compact star rotating at 1122 Hz and the r-mode instability
- Consistency between deep crustal heating of strange stars in superbursters and soft X-ray transients
- Evidence for strange stars from joint observation of harmonic absorption bands and of redshift
- 1-2-3-flavor color superconductivity in compact stars
- Comparing P-stars with Observations
- Surface structure of Quark stars with magnetic fields