BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Nuclear Physics
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1600563
This article is part of the Research TopicStrong and Weak Interactions in Compact StarsView all 5 articles
Confronting recent light compact star observations with color-flavor locked quark matter
Provisionally accepted
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
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Recent analyses on the properties of the central compact object in the HESS J1731-347 remnant and the PSR J1231-1411 pulsar indicated that these two compact objects are characterized by similar (low) masses and possibly different radii. This paper aims at reconciling the aforementioned measurements by utilizing the widely employed color-flavor locked (CFL) MIT bag model. The main objective is related to the examination of the acceptable values for the color superconducting gap ∆ and the bag parameter B. Furthermore, our analysis involves two distinct hypotheses for the nature of compact stars. Firstly, we considered the case of absolute stability for strange quark matter and we found that it is possible to explain both measurements, while also respecting the latest astronomical constraints on the masses and radii of compact stars. Secondly, we studied the case of hybrid stellar matter (transition from hadrons to quarks), and concluded that, when early phase transitions are considered, the simultaneous reconciliation of both measurements leads to results that are inconsistent to the existence of massive compact stars. However, we showed that all current constraints may be satisfied under the consideration that the HESS J1731-347 remnant contains a slow stable hybrid star.
Keywords: neutron stars, quark stars, color-flavor locked matter, Hadron-quark phase transition, Hybrid stars, equation of state
Received: 26 Mar 2025; Accepted: 11 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kourmpetis, Laskos-Patkos and Moustakidis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Charalampos Moustakidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
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