New modeling for hybrid stars with an elastic quark core

Heavy neutron stars may contain solid quark cores as motivated by, e.g. the crystalline color superconducting phase, forming elastic hybrid stars (HSs). Many previous studies assumed an elastic core to be unsheared for the background, static and spherically symmetric configuration, and introduced shear deformation only at a perturbative level. This study relaxes this assumption and explores the influence of non-linear elasticity on the static, spherically symmetric structure of elastic HSs within a fully relativistic elasticity framework. Such a framework effectively introduces anisotropic pressure within the quark matter core due to elasticity. The quark core is modeled using a quasi-Hookean equation of state (EOS) with shear contributions, while the nuclear matter envelope is treated as a perfect fluid. We find that including elasticity increases the maximum mass of HSs by around 10%. This enhancement allows some soft EOSs to satisfy current observational constraints. However, since the effects of elasticity are primarily concentrated in the high-mass regime, the current observational constraints are insufficient to distinguish whether an elastic anisotropic quark core exists within these stars. Additionally, we show that the compactness of stable stars can exceed the critical value of 1/3 due to the inclusion of elasticity, making them potential candidates for black hole mimickers. Furthermore, we found that common phenomenological models fail to describe the anisotropy of the elastic core and propose a new parametrized anisotropy model that can accurately capture physically-motivated profiles with an error of 10% across a wide parameter space. This work not only bridges the gap between elastic EOSs and parametrized anisotropic models but also provides a foundation for applications such as studying nonradial perturbations, tidal deformability, and pulsation modes for elastic HSs.