Seeing ‘Strange’ Stars
`Could what we see as neutron stars really be so-called strange stars? Prashanth Jaikumar and his fellow researchers think so. They recently published a letter in Physical Review Letters that redefines the characteristics of a star composed mainly of strange quark matter.
Right now, physicists postulate that if strange stars exist they possess enormous density gradient at surface and exhibit a luminosity beyond that of other stars. The conventional wisdom is that the electric field of a strange star at its surface would be so large that it would be impossible to determine that the strange star is anything but. This paradigm has existed in astrophysics since the possibility of stars made from strange quark matter was acknowledged.’
