Quark matter in compact stars

Recently reported massive compact stars (M∼2M⊙) have provided strong constraints on the properties of the ultradense matter beyond the saturation nuclear density. Therefore, realistic quark or hybrid star models must be compatible with these observational data. Some used equations of state (EoS) describing quark matter are in general too soft and hence are not suitable to explain the stability of high compact star masses. In this work, we present the calculations of static spherically symmetric quark star structure by using an equation of state which takes into account the superconducting colour-flavour locked phase of the strange quark matter. In addition, some fundamental aspects of QCD (asymptotic freedom and confinement) are considered by means of a phenomenological description of the deconfined quark phase, the density-dependent quark mass model. We discuss the influence of the obtained quark matter equation of state on the mass-radius relationship of quark stars. Massive quark stars are found due to the stiffness of the equation of state, when reasonable values of the superconducting gap, taken as a free parameter, are used.