Related papers: Star Wreck
Supernovae explosions of massive stars are nowadays believed to result from a two-step process, with an initial gravitational core collapse followed by an expansion of matter after a bouncing on the core. This scenario meets several…
MSSM predicts the existence of Q-balls, some of which can be entirely stable. Both stable and unstable Q-balls can play an important role in cosmology. In particular, Affleck-Dine baryogenesis can result in a copious production of stable…
A neutron star with mass close to the lower limit might be a reasonable model for some anomalous pulsars. Emission is thermal. X-ray luminosity is high. Spatial velocity can be high. Since the radius is predicted to be large, the magnetic…
If gamma-ray bursts originate in our Galaxy, they probably involve violent disturbances in the magnetospheres of neutron stars. Any event of this kind is likely to trigger the sudden expulsion of magnetic flux and plasma at relativistic…
The neutron star crust is rigid material floating on a neutron-proton liquid core. As the star's spin rate slows, the changing stellar shape stresses the crust and causes fractures. These starquakes may trigger pulsar glitches as well as…
Given a bulk scalar field with sufficient self-interactions in a higher dimensional spacetime, it is shown that the continuous symmetries in four dimensions, induced by the topological structure of the compact manifold, naturally lead to…
The equations of state for degenerate electron and neutron gases are studied in the presence of magnetic fields. After including quantum effects to study the structural properties of these systems, it is found that some hypermagnetized…
Q-balls are non-topological solitons arising in scalar field theories. Solutions for rotating Q-balls (and the related boson stars) have been shown to exist when the angular momentum is equal to an integer multiple of the Q-ball charge $Q$.…
Modeling of the self-consistent formation and evolution of disks as a result of prestellar core collapse reveals an intense early phase of recurrent gravitational instability and clump formation. These clumps generally migrate inward due to…
In theories with low energy supersymmetry breaking, the effective potential for squarks and sleptons has generically nearly flat directions, V(phi) ~ M^4 (log(phi/M))^n. This guarantees the existence of stable non-topological solitons,…
(Abridged) We interpret gamma ray bursts as relativistic, electromagnetic explosions. Specifically, we propose that they are created when a rotating, relativistic, stellar-mass progenitor loses much of its rotational energy in the form of a…
We explore equilibrium solutions of non-topological solitons in a general class of scalar field theories which include global U(1) symmetry. We find new types of solutions, tube-shaped and crust-shaped objects, and investigate their…
We investigate three-dimensional relativistic trajectories of test particles in the spacetime of a slowly rotating compact star, under the combined influence of gravity and a strong, near-Eddington radiation field. While in the static case…
Pulsars show a steady decrease in their rotational frequency, occasionally interrupted by sudden spin-ups called glitches, whose physical origin is still a mystery. One suggested explanation for at least the small glitches are starquakes,…
Conversion from neutron stars to strange stars as a possible mechanism of cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) has been discussed in previous works, although the existence of strange stars is still an open question. On the basis of this…
We present a scenario (SupraNova) for the formation of GRBs occurring when a supramassive neutron star (SMNS) loses so much angular momentum that centrifugal support against self--gravity becomes impossible, and the star implodes to a black…
We suggest that superbursts from some low mass X-ray binaries may be due to breaking and re-formation of diquark pairs, on the surface of realistic strange stars. Diquarks are expected to break up due to the explosion and shock of the…
Theories with low-energy supersymmetry predict the existence of stable non-topological solitons, Q-balls, that can contribute to dark matter. We discuss the experimental signatures, methods of detection, and the present limits on such dark…
We consider a formation scenario for supramassive neutron stars (SMNSs) taking place through mass and angular momentum transfer from a close companion during a Low Mass X-ray Binary (LMXB) phase, with the ensuing suppression of the magnetic…
Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to be related to the explosion of type Ic supernovae, which have been stripped of their hydrogen and helium envelopes. There appear to be two types of these explosions: those which are approximately…