Anisotropic strange stars in the spotlight: unveiling constraints through observational data

Abstract

ABSTRACT Motivated by the recent suggestions that very massive pulsar (PSR J0952−0607) and very light compact object (HESS J1731−347) exist, in this article, we revisit the possibility of such objects being strange stars instead of the standard hadronic neutron stars. We study the possible presence of local anisotropy and how it affects the macroscopic properties of strange stars and compare our results with the recent constraints presented in the literature. We found that the presence of anisotropy increases the maximum mass, the radius of the canonical star, and its tidal deformability for positive values of λBL and the opposite for negative values. We also show that although we cannot rule out the possibility of very compact objects being standard hadronic neutron stars, strange stars easily fulfill most of the observational constraints.