Quark Stars — The Hypothetical Mystery

Staring up at the night sky on a nice, clear night, there’s a lot to see. The stars are visible, the moon’s up, and occasionally you can even see planets! Recently, I got the chance to go on a star watch, and it gave me the chance to start thinking about the types of stars out there. We know about plenty already — red giants, yellow dwarfs, protostars, etc. — but there are some out there which are merely a theory… for now.

An image of the CMS and their exploration of heavy ions and quark possibilities, circa 2012.

One of these stars is the hypothetical quark star. The quark star starts with the breakdown of a process we already know about, which looks something like the process which follows.

So You Wanna Make A Quark Star

• Massive stars collapse to form neutron stars at the end of their lifetimes. This has actually been observed, so the beginning of the process already has some solidity to it!
• When this happens, there’s something called a degeneracy pressure which essentially keeps the neutrons intact and keeps the star stable, preventing gravitational collapse. This is where the differences in the quark star theory start coming up. In the quark star theory, if the pressure becomes overwhelming, the neutrons could break down into their constituent quarks.