The possible existence of compact stars made of absolutely stable strange quark matter—referred to as strange stars—was pointed out by Witten almost a quarter of a century ago. One of the most amazing features of such objects concerns the possible existence of ultrastrong electric fields on their surfaces, which, for ordinary strange matter, is around ${10}^{18}\mathrm{V}/\mathrm{cm}$. If strange matter forms a color superconductor, as expected for such matter, the strength of the electric field may increase to values that exceed ${10}^{19}\mathrm{V}/\mathrm{cm}$. The energy density associated with such huge electric fields is on the same order of magnitude as the energy density of strange matter itself, which, as shown in this paper, alters the masses and radii of strange quark stars at the 15% and 5% levels, respectively. Such mass increases facilitate the interpretation of massive compact stars, with masses of around $2M_{\odot }$, as strange quark stars.

• Received 30 July 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.80.083006