Are pulsars strange?

Abstract

Pulsar radio pulses are made up of the so called core and conal components. A remarkably precise relation for core component widths, found observationally, in effect specifies the size of the polar cap on pulsars. Inclusion of general relativistic effects makes the theoretical size dependent on the pulsar mass. The observed core width relation thus provides constraints on masses and radii of pulsars leading to a very stringent selection from the available equations of state for the pulsar matter, strongly indicating that pulsars are strange stars rather than neutron stars.