Repulsive Vector Couplings and Massive Strange Stars

ABSTRACT We describe in this work the hypothetical nuclear matter QCD phase composed of up, down and strange quarks, introducing repulsive vector interactions, which yield an enhanced MIT bag model (vMIT). Repulsive interactions seem a crucial ingredient to describe stable (and massive hybrid) compact star configurations, to comply with recent observations of pulsars with masses above . The motivation of our study, based on a known and widespread theoretical approach, is to review some of its foundations in view of recent observational advances on pulsar properties with a higher precision measurements. We address in this contribution the stability of compact stars with vector interactions, highlighting also the role of the bag constant and its impact on the stellar incompressibility. Therefore we reassess the proposal formulated by Bodmer, Terazawa, Witten, Farhi, and Jaffe, which suggests that strange quark matter may actually be more stable than ordinary hadronic matter. On this line of investigation, we analyze the dimensionless tidal deformability constraints of the intriguing central compact object (CCO) within the supernova remnant HESS J1731‐347 and the GW170817 event as strange matter candidates.