From strangelets to strange stars: A unified description

TL;DR

This paper presents a unified theoretical framework for describing objects from strangelets to strange stars, constrained by observational data, revealing their properties, surface electric potential, and magnetic fields.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model unifying strangelets and strange stars, constrained by observational data, and explores their properties and potential observable features.

Findings

Energy per baryon decreases with baryon number

Surface electric potential well formed due to quark depletion

Rotational strange stars generate pulsar-like magnetic fields

Abstract

The conventionally separated treatments for strangelets and strange stars are now unified with a more comprehensive theoretical description for objects ranging from strangelets to strange stars. After constraining the model parameter according to the Witten-Bodmer hypothesis and observational mass-radius probability distribution of pulsars, we investigate the properties of this kind of objects. It is found that the energy per baryon decreases monotonously for increasing baryon number and reaches its minimum at the maximum baryon number, corresponding to the most massive strange star. Due to the quark depletion, an electric potential well for negatively charged particles is formed on the surface of the quark part, which may provide some unique observables. For a rotational bare strange star, a magnetic field with the typical strength of pulsars is generated.