Related papers: RX J1856.5-3754: A strange star with solid quark s…
I describe recent high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of surface emission from nearby, thermally emitting neutron stars. I focus on RX J0720.4-3125, RX J1308.6+2127, and RX J1605.3+3249, all of which have similar temperature, but differ in…
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…
RX J1856.5$-$3754 is the brightest and nearest ($\sim 120$ pc) source among thermally emitting isolated neutron stars. Its spectra observed with {\sl XMM-Newton} and {\sl Chandra} satellites are well-fitted with the two-temperature…
We investigate the dynamical behavior of strange quark matter (SQM) objects, such as stars and planets, when subjected to radial oscillations induced by tidal interactions in stellar systems. Our study demonstrates that SQM objects can…
We present a Chandra observation of the exceptional planet bearing A5V star HR 8799, more precisely classified as a kA5hF0mA5 star and search for intrinsic X-ray emission. We clearly detect HR 8799 at soft X-ray energies with the ACIS-S…
We give an introduction crystalline color superconductivity, arguing that it is likely to occur wherever quark matter in which color-flavor locking does not occur is found. We survey the properties of this form of quark matter, and argue…
We have performed a detailed analysis of the XMM-Newton observation of IGR J16318-4848, to study the properties of the matter responsible for the obscuration and for the emission of Fe and Ni lines. Even if the line of sight material has a…
We perform an O(alpha_s^2) perturbative calculation of the equation of state of cold but dense QCD matter with two massless and one massive quark flavor, finding that perturbation theory converges reasonably well for quark chemical…
We present results from a new XMM-Newton observation of the high-redshift quasar RXJ1028.6-0844 at a redshift of 4.276. The soft X-ray spectral flattening, as reported by a study with ASCA previously (Yuan et al. 2000, ApJ 545, 625), is…
We found a narrow absorption feature at 0.57keV in the co-added RGS spectrum of the isolated neutron star RX J0720.4-3125 with an equivalent width of 1.35+/-0.3eV and FWHM ~6.0eV. The feature was identified with an absorption line of highly…
We report a Chandra high-energy grating detection of a narrow, redshifted absorption line superimposed on the red wing of a broad Fe K line in the $z=0.297$ quasar E1821+643. The absorption line is detected at a confidence level, estimated…
In this talk, we report the results discussed in \cite{Ruggieri:2011xc}, related to the phase structure of hot quark matter in presence of a background of chiral charge density, $n_5$.
Since the true ground state of the hadrons may be strange quark matter (SQM), pulsars may actually be strange stars rather than neutron stars. According to this SQM hypothesis, strange planets can also stably exist. The density of normal…
Surface effects in strange-quark matter play an important role for certain observables which have been proposed in order to identify strange stars, and color superconductivity can strongly modify these effects. We study the surface of color…
With the possible detection of the fastest spinning nuclear-powered pulsar XTE J1739-285 of frequency 1122 Hz (0.8913 ms), it arouses us to constrain the mass and radius of its central compact object and to imply the stellar matter…
A Chandra AO1 30ks HETGS observation of the X-ray transient micro-quasar GRS 1915+105 reveals absorption edges and faint line emission over the HETG energy range. We find from a preliminary analysis evidence for prominent neutral K edges…
The matter inside pulsar-like compact stars could be in a quark-cluster phase since in cold dense matter at a few nuclear densities (2 to 10 times), quarks could be coupled still very strongly and condensate in position space to form quark…
The X-ray light curve and broad band spectral properties of the millisecond X-ray pulsar/burster SAX J1808.4-3658 are reported. In the course of RXTE observations in April--May 1998 the 3--150 keV luminosity of the source decreased by a…
The photon emissivity from the bremsstrahlung process ee-> ee\gamma occuring in the electrosphere at the bare surface of a strange quark star is calculated. For surface temperatures T<10^9K, the photon flux exceeds that of e+e- pairs that…
We report on deep XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of the high redshift, z=2.94, extremely red quasar (ERQ), SDSS J165202.60+172852.4, with known galactic ionized outflows detected via spatially-resolved [OIII] emission lines. X-ray…