Speaker
Description
We investigate the maximum mass of strange quark stars within the framework of quadratic curvature gravity incorporating a non-minimal matter-geometry coupling. The coupling parameters associated with the quadratic curvature term and the matter-geometry interaction quantify, respectively, the contributions from higher-order curvature corrections and the departure from minimal coupling. We show that this framework generally leads to a non-conserved energy-momentum tensor, while the standard conservation law and the General Relativistic limit are recovered when the non-minimal coupling parameter approaches zero. From the modified gravitational field equations, we derive the corresponding Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations and solve them numerically using the MIT bag model equation of state. The resulting mass-radius relations demonstrate that the maximum stable mass of strange stars can exceed the prediction of General Relativity. In particular, we obtain a maximum mass of approximately 3.11 $M_{\odot}$, indicating that the secondary compact object in the GW190814 event could be consistently interpreted as a strange quark star within this theoretical framework.