1201.3101 (X. W. Liu et al.)

The missing compact star of SN1987A: a solid quark star?    [PDF]

X. W. Liu, J. D. Liang, R. X. Xu, J. L. Han, G. J. Qiao

To investigate the missing compact star of Supernova 1987A, we analysed both the cooling and the heating processes of a possible compact star based on the observational X-ray luminosity upper limit. From the cooling process we found that a solid quark cluster star (Lai & Xu 2011), with harder equation of state than liquid quark star, has heat capacity much smaller than neutron star and would cool quickly below the observational X-ray luminosity upper limit, which can naturally explain the non-detection of a point source (neutron star or quark star) in X-ray band. On the other hand, we considered the heating process from magnetospheric activity and possible accretion and obtained some constraints to the parameters of a possible pulsar.We conclude that a solid quark cluster star can accord with the observational limit in a large and normal parameter space, while a pulsar with short period and strong magnetic field (or with long period and weak field) would has luminosity higher than the limit if the optical depth is not large enough to hide the compact star. We expect that the constraints would be tested if the central compact object in 1987A could be discovered by advanced facilities (e.g., in radio bands) in the future.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.3101