Péridier Library Abstract Archive

Abstract No. UT 355

Title: Super-Giant Glitches and Quark Stars: Sources of Gamma Ray Bursts?
Author(s): Feng Ma, Bingrong Xie
Keywords: dense matter---elementary particles---gamma rays:bursts---stars:neutro n
E-Mail: Feng Ma (to request a full copy of this paper)
Preprint: 9603134 Document source or PostScript
Release date: 04/01/96 13:54:44
Publication status: Astrophys. J. (Letters), vol. 462, no. 2 (1996 May 10), in press
Comments: 12 pages, 0 figures

When a spinning-down neutron star undergoes a phase transition that produces quark matter in its core, a Super-Giant Glitch of the order Delta Omega / Omega ~ 0.3 occurs on time scales from 0.05 seconds to a few minutes. The energy released is about 10⁵² ergs and can account for Gamma Ray Bursts at cosmological distances. The estimated burst frequency, 10^-6 per year per galaxy, is in very good agreement with observations. We also discuss the possibility of distinguishing these even ts from neutron star mergers by observing the different temporal behavior of gravit ational waves.