QUARK-CLUSTER STARS: THE STRUCTURE
The nature of pulsar-like compact stars is still in controversy although the first pulsar was found more than 40 years ago. Generally speaking, conventional neutron stars and non-mainstream quark stars are two types of models to describe the inner structure of pulsars, with the former composed mainly of hadrons and the latter of a peculiar kind of matter whose state equation should be understood in the level of quarks rather than hadrons. To construct a more realistic model from both theoretical and observational points of view, we conjecture that pulsars could be "quark-cluster stars" which are composed of quark-clusters with almost equal numbers of up, down and strange quarks. Clustering quark matter could be the result of strong coupling between quarks inside realistic compact stars. The lightest quark clusters could be of H-dibaryons, while quark clusters could also be heavier with more quarks. Being essentially related to the non-perturbative quantum-chromo dynamics (QCD), the state of supra-nuclear condensed matter is really difficult to obtain strictly by only theoretical QCD-calculations, and we expect, nevertheless, that astrophysical observations could help us to have a final solution.

title: The state of cold quark matter: a model-independent view
abstract: From a model-independent point of view, we address the possibility that quark clustering could occur in cold quark matter at realistic baryon densities because of the likely strong coupling between quarks in compact stars.

title: 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 m2, 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≃0.6 km and mass of M≃3×10−4 M⊙. Such a low‐mass quark star system may form in an accretion induced collapse process or a collision process of two quark stars.

title: H-cluster stars
abstract: The study of dense matter at ultra-high density has a very long history, which is meaningful for us to understand not only cosmic events in extreme circumstances but also fundamental laws of physics. It is well known that the state of cold matter at supra-nuclear density depends on the non-perturbative nature of quantum chromo-dynamics (QCD) and is essential for modeling pulsars. A so-called H-cluster matter is proposed in this paper as the nature of dense matter in reality. 
In compact stars at only a few nuclear densities but low temperature, quarks could be interacting strongly with each other there. That might render quarks grouped in clusters, although the hypothetical quark-clusters in cold dense matter has not been confirmed due to the lack of both theoretical and experimental evidence. Motivated by recent lattice QCD simulations of the H-dibaryons (with structure uuddss), we are therefore considering here a possible kind of quark-clusters, H-clusters, that could emerge inside compact stars during their initial cooling, as the dominant components inside (the degree of freedom could then be H-clusters there).Taking into account the in-medium stiffening effect, we find that at baryon densities of compact stars $H$-cluster matter could be more stable than nuclear matter. We also find that for the H-cluster matter with lattice structure, the equation of state could be so stiff that it would seem to be "superluminal" in most dense region. However, the real sound speed for H-cluster matter is in fact hard to calculate, so at this stage we do not put constraints on our model from the usual requirment of causality.

title: Are AXPs/SGRs magnetars?
abstract: Anomalous X-ray Pulsars and Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters have been generally recognized as neutron stars with super strong magnetic fields, namely "magnetars". The "magnetars" manifest that the luminosity in X-ray band are larger than the rotational energy loss rate, i.e. $L_{X}>\dot {E}_{\rm rot}$, and then the radiation energy is coming from the energy of magnetic field. Here it is argued that magnetars may not really exist. Some X-ray and radio observational results are contradicted with the magnetar model. 
(1) The X-ray luminosity of PSR J1852+0040 is much larger than the rotational energy loss rate ($L_{X}/\dot {E}_{\rm rot}\simeq 18)$, but the magnetic field is just $3.1\times 10^{11}$ G. Does this X-ray radiation energy come from the magnetic field? 
(2) In contrast to the above, the magnetic fields of radio pulsars J1847-0130 and PSR J1718-3718 are higher than that of AXP 1E 2259+586, why is the radiation energy of those two radio pulsars still coming from rotational energy? Furthermore, the magnetic field of the newly discovered SGR 0418+5729 with the lowest magnetic field is 3.0 e13 G, lower than the critical magnetic field $B_{\rm C}=4.414$ e13 G) (Esposito et al. 2010). 
(3) Some "magnetars" also emit normal transient radio pulses, what is the essential difference between radio pulsars and the "magnetars"? 
The observational fact arguments will be presented at first, then we discuss in what situation the conventional method to obtain magnetic field could not be correct.

title: The Extremely Long-period X-Ray Source in a Young Supernova Remnant: A Thorne-Żytkow Object Descendant?
abstract: The origin of the 6.67 hr period X-ray source, 1E161348-5055, in the young supernova remnant RCW 103 is puzzling. We propose that it may be the descendant of a Thorne-Żytkow Object (TŻO). A TŻO may at its formation have a rapidly spinning neutron star as a core and a slowly rotating envelope. We found that the core could be braked quickly to an extremely long spin period by the coupling between its magnetic field and the envelope, and that the envelope could be disrupted by some powerful bursts or exhausted via stellar wind. If the envelope is disrupted after the core has spun down, the core will become an extremely long-period compact object, with a slow proper motion speed, surrounded by a supernova-remnant-like shell. These features all agree with the observations of 1E161348-5055. TŻOs are expected to have produced extraordinarily high abundances of lithium and rapid proton process elements that would remain in the remnants and could be used to test this scenario.

title: Effect of asymmetric strange–antistrange sea to the NuTeV anomaly
abstract: We calculate the strange quark and antiquark distributions of the nucleon by using the effective chiral quark model, and find that the strange–antistrange asymmetry can bring a contribution of about 60–100% to the NuTeV deviation of sin 2 θ w from the standard value measured in other electroweak processes. The results are insensitive to different inputs. The light-flavor quark asymmetry of d ¯ – u ¯ is also investigated and found to be consistent with the experimental measurements. Therefore the chiral quark model provides a successful picture to understand the NuTeV anomaly, as well as the light-flavor quark asymmetry and the proton spin problem in previous studies.

title: Measurement of the W mass in $e^+e^-$ collisions at production threshold
abstract: In June 1996, the LEP centre-of-mass energy was raised to 161 GeV. Pair production of W bosons in e+e− collisions was observed for the first time by the LEP experiments. An integrated luminosity of 11 pb−1 was recorded in the ALEPH detector, in which WW candidate events were observed. In 6 events both Ws decay leptonically. In 16 events, one W decays leptonically, the other into hadrons. In the channel where both Ws decay into hadrons, a signal was separated from the large background by means of several multi-variate analyses. The W pair cross-section is measured to be σWW = 4.23 ± 0.73 (stat.) ± 0.19 (syst.) pb. From this cross-section, the W mass is derived within the framework of the Standard Model: mW = 80.14 ± 0.34 (stat.) ± 0.09 (syst.) ± 0.03 (LEP energy) GeV/c2

title: Measurement of the strong coupling constant using τ decays
abstract: The strong coupling constant is determined from the leptonic branching ratios, the lifetime, and the invariant mass distribution of the hadronic final state of the τ lepton, using data accumulated at LEP with the ALEPH detector. The strong coupling constant measurement, αs(mτ2) = 0.330±0.046, evolved to the Z mass yields αs(MZ2) = 0.188±0.005. The error includes experimental and theoretical uncertainties, the latter evaluated in the framework of the Shifman, Vainshtein and Zakharov (SVZ) approach. The method allows the non-perturbative contribution to the hadronic decay rate to be determined to be 0.3±0.5%.

title: Study of the four-fermion final state at the Z resonance
abstract: process e+e−→, where l is a charged or a neutral lepton and f any charged fermion, is analyzed. The study uses the ALEPH data collected at LEP from 1989 to 1993 at centre-of-mass energies between 88 and 95 GeV, corresponding to almost two million hadronic Z decays and to a total integrated luminosity of 79 pb−1. For all channels, the data agree well with the standard model expectation both in shape and normalization. The indication of an excess in the
$$e^ + e^ - \to \tau ^ + \tau ^ - f\bar f$$
 channel, reported by ALEPH in 1991, is not confirmed.

title: Measurement of the polarization of tau leptons produced in Z decays
abstract: The polarization of τ leptons produced in the reaction e+e−→τ+τ− at the Z resonance has been measured using the τ decay modes eνeντ, μνμντ, πντ, ϱντ, and a1ντ. The mean value obtained is Pτ = −0.152±0.045, indicating that parity is violated in the neutral current process e+e− → τ+τ−. The result corresponds to a ratio of a neutral current vector and axial vector coupling constants of the τ lepton g V τ (M 2 Z ) g A τ (M 2 Z ) = 0.076±0.023 and a value of the electroweak mixing parameter sin2θw(M2Z) = 0.2302 ± 0.0058.