Exotic star

An exotic star is a hypothetical compact star composed of exotic matter (something not made of electrons, protons, neutrons, or muons), and balanced against gravitational collapse by degeneracy pressure or other quantum properties.

Types of exotic stars include

• quark stars (composed of quarks)
• strange stars (composed of strange quark matter, a condensate of up, down, and strange quarks)
• § Preon stars (speculative material composed of preons, which are hypothetical particles and "building blocks" of quarks and leptons, should quarks be decomposable into component sub-particles).

Of the various types of exotic star proposed, the most well evidenced and understood is the quark star, although its existence is not confirmed.

In Newtonian mechanics, objects dense enough to trap any emitted light are called dark stars,^[1][2][a], as opposed to black holes in general relativity. However, the same name is used for hypothetical ancient "stars" which derived energy from dark matter.

Exotic stars are hypothetical – partly because it is difficult to test in detail how such forms of matter may behave, and partly because prior to the fledgling technology of gravitational-wave astronomy, there was no satisfactory means of detecting compact astrophysical objects that do not radiate either electromagnetically or through known particles. While candidate objects are occasionally identified based on indirect evidence, it is not yet possible to distinguish their observational signatures from those of known objects.

A quark star is a hypothesized object that results from the decomposition of neutrons into their constituent up and down quarks under gravitational pressure. It is expected to be smaller and denser than a neutron star, and may survive in this new state indefinitely, if no extra mass is added. Effectively, it is a single, very large hadron. Quark stars that contain strange matter are called strange stars.

Based on observations released by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory on 10 April 2002, two objects, named RX J1856.5−3754 and 3C 58, were suggested as quark star candidates. The former appeared to be much smaller and the latter much colder than expected for a neutron star, suggesting that they were composed of material denser than neutronium. However, these observations were met with skepticism by researchers who said the results were not conclusive.^[who?] After further analysis, RX J1856.5−3754 was excluded from the list of quark star candidates.^[3]

An electroweak star is a hypothetical type of exotic star in which the gravitational collapse of the star is prevented by radiation pressure resulting from electroweak burning; that is, the energy released by the conversion of quarks into leptons through the electroweak force. This proposed process might occur in a volume at the star's core approximately the size of an apple, containing about two Earth masses, and reaching temperatures on the order of 10¹⁵ K (1 PK).^[4][5] Electroweak stars could be identified through the equal number of neutrinos emitted of all three generations, taking into account neutrino oscillation.^[4]

A preon star is a proposed type of compact star made of preons, a group of hypothetical subatomic particles. Preon stars would be expected to have huge densities, exceeding 10²³ kg/m³. They may have greater densities than quark stars, and they would be heavier but smaller than white dwarfs and neutron stars.^[6] Preon stars could originate from supernova explosions or the Big Bang. Such objects could be detected in principle through gravitational lensing of gamma rays. Preon stars are a potential candidate for dark matter. However, current observations^[7] from particle accelerators speak against the existence of preons, or at least do not prioritize their investigation, since the only particle detector presently able to explore very high energies (the Large Hadron Collider) is not designed specifically for this and its research program is directed towards other areas, such as studying the Higgs boson, quark–gluon plasma and evidence related to physics beyond the Standard Model.^{[clarification needed]}

A boson star is a hypothetical astronomical object formed out of particles called bosons (conventional stars are formed from mostly protons and electrons, which are fermions, but also contain a large proportion of helium-4 nuclei, which are bosons, and smaller amounts of various heavier nuclei, which can be either). For this type of star to exist, there must be a stable type of boson with self-repulsive interaction; one possible candidate particle^[8] is the still-hypothetical "axion" (which is also a candidate for the not-yet-detected "non-baryonic dark matter" particles, which appear to compose roughly 25% of the mass of the Universe). It is theorized^[9] that unlike normal stars (which emit radiation due to gravitational pressure and nuclear fusion), boson stars would be transparent and invisible. The immense gravity of a compact boson star would bend light around the object, creating an empty region resembling the shadow of a black hole's event horizon. Like a black hole, a boson star would absorb ordinary matter from its surroundings, but because of the transparency, matter (which would probably heat up and emit radiation) would be visible at its center. Simulations suggest that rotating boson stars would be torus, or "doughnut-shaped", as centrifugal forces would give the bosonic matter that form.

As of 2024^[update], there is no significant evidence that such stars exist. However, it may become possible to detect them by the gravitational radiation emitted by a pair of co-orbiting boson stars,^[10][11] and GW190521, thought to be the most energetic black hole merging, may be the head-on collision of two boson stars.^[12]

Boson stars may have formed through gravitational collapse during the primordial stages of the Big Bang.^[13] At least in theory, a supermassive boson star could exist at the core of a galaxy, which may explain many of the observed properties of active galactic cores.^[14]

Boson stars have also been proposed as candidate dark matter objects,^[15] and it has been hypothesized that the dark matter haloes surrounding most galaxies might be viewed as enormous "boson stars."^[16]

The compact boson stars and boson shells are often studied involving fields like the massive (or massless) complex scalar fields, the U(1) gauge field and gravity with conical potential. The presence of a positive or negative cosmological constant in the theory facilitates a study of these objects in de Sitter and anti-de Sitter spaces.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

Boson stars composed of elementary particles with spin-1 have been labelled Proca stars.^[22]

Braaten, Mohapatra, and Zhang (2016) have theorized that a new type dense axion star may exist in which gravity is balanced by the mean-field pressure of the axion Bose–Einstein condensate.^[23] The possibility that dense axion stars exist has been challenged by other work that does not support this claim.^[24]

In loop quantum gravity, a Planck star is a hypothetically possible astronomical object that is created when the energy density of a collapsing star reaches the Planck energy density. Under these conditions, assuming gravity and spacetime are quantized, there arises a repulsive "force" derived from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In other words, if gravity and spacetime are quantized, the accumulation of mass-energy inside the Planck star cannot collapse beyond this limit to form a gravitational singularity because it would violate the uncertainty principle for spacetime itself.^[25]

Q-stars are hypothetical objects that originate from supernovae or the big bang. They are theorized to be massive enough to bend space-time to a degree such that some, but not all light could escape from its surface. These are predicted to be denser than neutron stars or even quark stars.^[26]

• Exotic matter
• Glueball
• Q star
• Quasi-star
• Electroweak force
• Chiral anomaly
• Sphaleron
• Quark nova
• Quark star
• Preon star
• Lepton
• Quark
• Degenerate matter
• Degeneracy pressure

• Miller, J.C.; Shahbaz, T.; Nolan, L.A. (1997). "Are Q-stars a serious threat for stellar-mass black hole candidates?". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 294 (2): L25–L29. arXiv:astro-ph/9708065. doi:10.1111/j.1365-8711.1998.01384.x. S2CID 715726.
• Abramowicz, Marek A.; Kluzniak, Wlodek; Lasota, Jean-Pierre (2002). "No observational proof of the black-hole event-horizon". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 396 (3): L31–L34. arXiv:astro-ph/0207270. Bibcode:2002A&A...396L..31A. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20021645. S2CID 9771972.
• "Could preon stars reveal a hidden reality?". New Scientist. No. 2643. 6 February 2008.
• "Micro-stars may manage to avoid black-hole fate". New Scientist. No. 2472. 6 November 2008.
• Dai, De-Chang; Lue, Arthur; Starkman, Glenn; Stojkovic, Dejan (2010). "Electroweak stars: How nature may capitalize on the standard model's ultimate fuel". Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2010 (12): 004. arXiv:0912.0520. Bibcode:2010JCAP...12..004D. doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2010/12/004. S2CID 118417017.
• "Theorists Propose a New Way to Shine – And a New Kind of Star: 'Electroweak'". ScienceDaily. 15 December 2009. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
• "A New Way To Shine, A New Kind Of Star". SpaceDaily. 16 December 2009. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
• "Theorists propose a new way to shine — and a new kind of star". Astronomy Magazine. 15 December 2009. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
• "Astronomers Predict New Class of 'Electroweak' Star". Technology Review. 10 December 2009. Archived from the original on 19 October 2012. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
• Vieru, Tudor (15 December 2009). "New type of cosmic objects: Electroweak stars". Softpedia. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
• Dai, De-Chang; Lue, Arthur; Starkman, Glenn; Stojkovic, Dejan (2010). "Electroweak stars: How nature may capitalize on the standard model's ultimate fuel". Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2010 (12): 004. arXiv:0912.0520. Bibcode:2010JCAP...12..004D. doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2010/12/004. S2CID 118417017.