Stable quark matter in cosmic rays?
Abstract
Stable lumps of quark matter may be present in cosmic rays at a flux level, which can be detected by high precision cosmic ray experiments sensitive to anomalous "nuclei" with high mass-to-charge ratio. The properties of these lumps, called strangelets, are described, and so is the production and propagation of strangelets in cosmic rays. Two experiments underway which are sensitive to a strangelet flux in the predicted range are briefly described. Finally it is summarized how strangelets circumvent the acceleration problem encountered by conventional candidates for ultra-high energy cosmic rays and move the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff to energies well above the observed maximum energies.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0512512,
title = {Stable quark matter in cosmic rays?},
author = {Jes Madsen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0512512},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
16 pages, 29th Johns Hopkins Workshop on current problems in particle theory: Strong Matter in the Heavens