The Newly Detected Pulsar in SN 1987A as a Test of Gravitational Theories

If the recently reported 0.5 ms period pulsed optical signal from SN 1987A is associated with a young neutron star, then a new important constraint on stable neutron star solutions of gravitational theories and the equations of state has been found. The very rapid pulsar period would imply that according to Einstein's gravitational theory (EGT), the neutron star is rotating with an angular velocity that is larger than the breakup angular velocity, which would cause an unrealistic constraint on the equation of state of nonexotic nuclear matter. It is shown that the break-up speed of a neutron star in the nonsymmetric gravitational theory (NGT) can be significantly larger than in EGT and allow for conventional realistic nuclear equations of state.