A family of charged compact objects with anisotropic pressure

Utilizing an ansatz developed by Maurya and co-workers we present a class of exact solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell field equations describing a spherically symmetric compact object. A detailed physical analysis of these solutions in terms of stability, compactness and regularity indicate that these solutions may be used to model strange star candidates. In particular, we model the strange star candidate Her X-1 and show that our solution conforms to observational data to an excellent degree of accuracy. An interesting and novel phenomenon which arises in this model is the fact that the relative difference between the electromagnetic force and the force due to pressure anisotropy changes sign within the stellar interior. This may be a an additional mechanism required for stability against cracking of the stellar object.