AXPsSGRs Magnetars or Quark-stars.pdfVIP

a r X i v : a s t r o - p h / 0 6 1 1 6 0 8 v 5 1 9 M a y 2 0 0 7 AXPs/SGRs: Magnetars or Quark-stars? Renxin Xu School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; r.x.xu@ Abstract The magnetar model and a solid quark star model for anomalous X-ray pulsars/soft gamma-ray repeaters (AXPs/SGRs) are discussed. Different manifestations of pulsar- like stars are speculated to be due to both their nature (e.g., mass and strain) and their nurture (ambience, and consequently the type of accretion) in the solid quark star scenario. Relevant arguments made by the author’s group, including a debate on solid cold quark matter, are briefly summarized too. Key words: pulsars, neutron stars, elementary particles 1 Historical notes on magnetars and quark-stars Since the discovery of radio pulsars about 40 years ago, more kinds of pulsar- like stars have been discovered, which are distinguished by their various man- ifestations, i.e., accretion-driven X-ray pulsars, X-ray bursters, AXPs/SGRs (anomalous X-ray pulsars/soft gamma-ray repeaters), CCOs (central com- pact objects in supernova remnants), DTNs (dim thermal neutron stars), and RRATS (rotating radio transient sources). Among these, the enigmatic sources, AXPs and SGRs, share three common surprising features: (i) all the sources have long spin periods (5 ? 12 s) and persistent X-ray emission with luminosities well in excess of their spin-down powers, (ii) no clear evidence for them in binaries is obtained, and (iii) they show X-ray bursts, even giant flares saturating space detectors (the typical luminosity is greater than 106 times of the Eddington one). Four SGRs (4 confirmed, 3 candidates) and eight AXPs (8 confirmed, 1 candidate) have now been discovered (see the catalog updated online at “http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/～pulsar/magnetar/main.html”). Rapid rotation was generally thought to be the only energy source for pulsar emission soon after the discovery of radio pulsars (e.g., Manchester Taylor, 1977) un