The Response of Bare Strange Stars to the Energy Input onto Their Surfaces

We study numerically the thermal emission of e⁺e^- pairs from a bare strange star heated by energy input onto its surface; heating starts at some moment and is steady afterward. The thermal luminosity in e⁺e^- pairs increases to some constant value. The rise time and the steady thermal luminosity are evaluated. Both normal and color superconducting states of the strange quark matter are considered. The results are used to test the model of soft gamma-ray repeaters in which the bursting activity is explained by the fast decay of superstrong magnetic fields and the heating of the strange star surface. It is shown that the rise times observed in typical bursts may be explained in this model only if the strange quark matter is a superconductor with an energy gap of more than 1 MeV.