Pulsars: Gigantic Nuclei

Abstract

What is the real nature of pulsars? This is essentially a question of the fundamental strong interaction between quarks at low-energy scale and hence of the non-perturbative quantum chromo-dynamics, the solution of which would certainly be meaningful for us to understand one of the seven millennium prize problems (i.e., "Yang-Mills Theory") named by the Clay Mathematical Institute. After a historical note, it is argued here that a pulsar is very similar to an extremely big nucleus, but is a little bit different from the {\em gigantic nucleus} speculated 80 years ago by L. Landau. The paper demonstrates the similarity between pulsars and gigantic nuclei from both points of view: the different manifestations of compact stars and the general behavior of the strong interaction.