Quark stars with strongly interacting quark matter in energy-momentum squared gravity

The discovery of pulsars indicates the possibility for heavy neutron stars and also opened a new field of research for understanding the behavior of matter at ultrahigh densities and temperatures. Therefore, the equation of state (EoS) governing these compact objects is a key entity in describing their global properties. In this study, we investigate the potential of quark stars, which are composed of interacting quark matter with color superconductivity and perturbative QCD corrections. By using the EoS with the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) equations, we explore the structural properties of quark stars in a modified theory of gravity known as energy-momentum squared gravity (EMSG). We impose observational limits to constrain the allowed values of the parameters appearing in EMSG, taking into account some astrophysical constraints related to the mass-radius [Formula: see text] relation of pulsars. Consequently, we study the quark star (QS) properties with different model parameters and determine the stability of stars by analyzing their sound velocity profiles, adiabatic index, static stability criteria and surface gravitational redshift.