X-ray flares of γ-ray bursts: Quakes of solid quark stars?

A star-quake model is proposed to understand X-ray flares of both long and short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in a solid quark star regime. Two kinds of central engines for GRBs are available if pulsar-like stars are actually (solid) quark stars, i.e., the SNE-type GRBs and the SGR-type GRBs. It is found that a quark star could be solidified about 10(3) to 10(6) s later after its birth if the critical temperature of phase transition is a few Metga-electron-volts, and then a new source of free energy (i.e., elastic and gravitational ones, rather than rotational or magnetic energy) could be possible to power GRB X-ray flares.