PSR B1257+12: a quark star with planets?

Abstract

A recent observation has shown that PSR B1257+12 could have quite small X-ray emitting area, only about 2000 m$^2$, which is more than three orders smaller than the canonical polar cap size. We suggest here that PSR B1257+12 could be a low-mass quark star with radius of $R \simeq 0.6$ km and mass of M \simeq 3\times10^{-4}\msun. Such a low-mass quark star system may form in an accretion induced collapse process or a collision process of two quark stars.Comment: 3 pages, 1figure, poster at the international conference "Astrophysics of Compact Objects" (July 1-7, 2007, Huangshan, China