Quark cores in extensions of the MIT bag model

Abstract

Recent observations of massive pulsars having masses of the order of two solar mass pose a new challenge for compact objects such as hybrid stars and neutron stars. Extensions of the bag model and the Nambu-Jona-Lasino model have been used to model these stars to get higher mass stars. Quark matter has been predicted in the cores of these massive stars. In this work we show that an extension of the bag model, with a chemical potential dependent bag parameter can lead to an isentropic phase transition in the core of the neutron star. Our model shows that an equation of state having all three quarks u, d and s would lead to massive stars with stable quark matter. We find that the mass of the stars not only depends on the bag constant but also on the mass of the strange quark. The mass - radius ratio which determines the redshift values on the surface, indicates that it is possible to obtain stable self bound strange quark matter stars with reasonable values of the bag pressure which correspond to the recent observations of large mass stars.