Pulsars: Macro-nuclei with 3-flavour symmetry

Abstract

A pulsar-like compact star is the rump left behind after a supernova where normal baryonic matter is intensely compressed by gravity, but the real state of such compressed baryonic matter is still not well understood because of the non-perturbative nature of the fundamental color interaction. We argue that pulsars could be of condensed matter of quark clusters, i.e., "quark-cluster stars" which distinguish from conventional neutron and quark stars. In comparison with 2-flavour symmetric micro-nuclei, a quark-cluster star could simply be considered as a macro-nucleus with 3-flavour symmetry. New research achievements both theoretical and observational are briefly presented.