From strangelets to strange stars: A unified description

Abstract

The conventionally separated treatments for strangelets and strange stars are now unified with a more comprehensive theoretical description for objects ranging from strangelets to strange stars. After constraining the model parameter according to the Witten-Bodmer hypothesis and observational mass-radius probability distribution of pulsars, we investigate the properties of this kind of objects. It is found that the energy per baryon decreases monotonously for increasing baryon number and reaches its minimum at the maximum baryon number, corresponding to the most massive strange star. Due to the quark depletion, an electric potential well for negatively charged particles is formed on the surface of the quark part, which may provide some unique observables. For a rotational bare strange star, a magnetic field with the typical strength of pulsars is generated.