Strange stars in f (R, T) gravity

In this article we try to present spherically symmetric isotropic strange star model under the framework of f (R, T) theory of gravity. To this end, we consider that the Lagrangian density is a linear function of the Ricci scalar R and the trace of the energy momentum tensor T given as f (R, T) = R + 2 chi T. We also assume that the quark matter distribution is governed by the simplest form of the MIT bag model equation of state (EOS) as p = 1/3 (rho - 4B), where B is the bag constant. We have obtained an exact solution of the modified form of the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equation in the framework of f (R, T) gravity theory and have studied the dependence of different physical properties, viz., the total mass, radius, energy density and pressure for the chosen values of chi. Further, to examine physical acceptability of the proposed stellar model, we have conducted different tests in detail, viz., the energy conditions, modified TOV equation, mass-radius relation, causality condition etc. We have precisely explained the effects arising due to the coupling of the matter and geometry on the compact stellar system. For a chosen value of the bag constant, we have predicted numerical values of the different physical parameters in tabular form for the different strange star candidates. It is found that as the factor chi decreases the strange star candidates become gradually massive and larger in size with less dense stellar configuration. However, when chi increases the stars shrink gradually and become less massive to turn into a more compact stellar system. Hence for chi > 0 our proposed model is suitable to explain the ultra-dense compact stars well within the observational limits and for chi < 0 case allows to represent the recent massive pulsars and super-Chandrasekhar stars. For chi = 0 we retrieve as usual the standard results of the general relativity (GR).