A compact star rotating at 1122 Hz and the r-mode instability
Abstract
We show that r-mode instabilities severely constraint the composition of a compact star rotating at a submillisecond period. In particular, the only viable astrophysical scenario for such an object, present inside the Low Mass X-ray Binary associated with the x-ray transient XTE J1739-285, is that it has a strangeness content. Since previous analysis indicate that hyperonic stars or stars containing a kaon condensate are not good candidates, the only remaining possibility is that such an object is either a strange quark star or a hybrid quark-hadron star. We also discuss under which conditions sub-millisecond pulsars are rare.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0704.1510,
title = {A compact star rotating at 1122 Hz and the r-mode instability},
author = {Alessandro Drago and Giuseppe Pagliara and Irene Parenti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0704.1510},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
13 pages, 4 figures, I table. Revised version contains a much more extended discussion of the astrophysical scenario