Thermal Photons From Magnetized Bare Strange Stars

TL;DR

This paper explores how strong magnetic fields in bare strange stars could enable thermal radiation emission at certain frequencies despite the high plasma frequency of strange-quark matter, suggesting potential observability.

Contribution

It introduces the effect of magnetic fields on radiation propagation in strange-quark matter, revealing narrow frequency bands where emission is possible.

Findings

Magnetic fields create gyrofrequencies that allow radiation at specific frequencies.

Narrow radiation bands may be observable from magnetized bare strange stars.

High plasma frequency generally prevents thermal emission from bare strange stars.

Abstract

A plasma made out of strange-quark matter (SQM) and electrons, has a rather high plasma frequency (>20 MeV). Thus, a compact star made of such material all the way up to its surface, i.e., a bare strange star, would be unable to radiate away its thermal emission. We use the MIT-bag model and assume that SQM is the ground state of nuclear matter at high density. We investigate whether the presence of a magnetic field will allow propagation of radiation at frequencies below the SQM plasma frequencies. Hence, we study the presence of gyrofrequencies in a SQM plasma permeated by a strong magnetic field (B > 10^{12} G). We find that small regions in the frequency spectrum allow radiation propagation due to the presence of the magnetic fields. It is likely that narrow bands of radiation would likely be observable from magnetized bare strange stars .