Maximum orbital frequencies for rotating quark stars and neutron stars--implications for the resonance theory of kHz QPOs

Abstract

The spin-up of a neutron star crucially depends on the maximum orbital frequency around it, as do a host of other high energy accretion phenomena in low mass X-ray binaries, including quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the X-ray flux. We compare the maximum orbital frequencies for MIT-bag quark stars and for neutron stars modeled with the FPS equation of state. The results are based on relativistic calculations of constant baryon sequences of uniformly rotating strange star models, and are presented as a function of the stellar rotational frequency. The marginally stable orbit is present outside quark stars for a wide range of parameters, but outside the neutron stars it is present only for the highest values of mass. This allows a discrimination between quark stars and neutron stars in the resonance theory of kHz QPOs.