A neutron star with a strange quark star-like mass-radius relation

Abstract

We study the structure of spherically symmetric and static objects in the presence of a nonminimally coupled scalar field having a potential of the form $V(\phi)=-\mu^2\phi^2/2+\lambda\phi^4/4$. We numerically solve equations of the system using two different realistic equations of state for neutron matter and give the mass-radius relations as well as the radial profiles of the scalar field, densities and the mass function for a sample configuration. We show that a specific solution type encountered in such systems causes characteristic neutron star mass-radius relations to turn into the ones belonging to strange quark stars.