Related papers: The Cosmic Quarks
In order to actually see the hadron-quark transition happening in a neutron star, we point out and study two static conditions (the transition hadronic density must be lower than the neutron star maximum hadronic density; the neutron star…
There are strong indications that the process of conversion of a neutron star into a strange quark star proceeds as a strong deflagration implying that in a few milliseconds almost the whole star is converted. Starting from the…
Recent achievements of bare strange stars are briefly reviewed. A nascent protostrange star should be bare because of strong mass ejection and high temperature after the supernova detonation flame, and a crust can also hardly form except…
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…
The hot dense environment of the early universe is known to have produced large numbers of baryons, photons, and neutrinos. These extreme conditions may have also produced other long-lived species, including new light particles (such as…
The present work is connected with the investigation of the origin and properties of compact astrophysical objects endowed with strangeness, with the objective of finding out their relevance in the formation and evolution of the universe.…
Formed in the aftermath of gravitational core-collapse supernova explosions, neutron stars are unique cosmic laboratories for probing the properties of matter under extreme conditions that cannot be reproduced in terrestrial laboratories.…
We discuss cold dense QCD by examining constraints from neutron stars, nuclear experiments, and QCD calculations at low and high baryon density. The two solar mass constraint and suggestive small radii (10~13 km) of neutron stars constrain…
Strange quark matter (SQM) may be the true ground state of hadronic matter, indicating that the observed pulsars may actually be strange stars, but not neutron stars. According to this SQM hypothesis, the existence of a hydrostatically…
Two of the greatest mysteries of modern physics are the origin of the dark matter in the universe and the nature of the highest energy particles in the cosmic ray spectrum. We discuss here possible direct and indirect connections between…
Strange quark nuggets (SQNs) could be the relics of the cosmological QCD phase transition, and they could very likely be the candidate of cold quark matter if survived the cooling of the later Universe, although the formation and evolution…
I describe a dark matter candidate based in qcd physics in which the dark matter is composed of macroscopically large "nuggets" of quark and anti-quark matter. These objects may have a sufficiently massive low number density to avoid…
Axion quark nuggets (AQNs) are hypothetical objects with a mass greater than a few grams and sub-micrometer size, formed during the quark-hadron transition. Originating from the axion field, they offer a possible resolution of the…
A quark-cluster state, rather than the color-super-conductivity state, may appear in matter with low-temperature but high density, since the phase transition of chiral symmetry broken and that of color-confinement could not occur…
The properties of strange quark matter and strange hadronic matter and their finite counterparts (strangelets and MEMOs) are reviewed. The production of strange matter in heavy-ion collision and the appearance of strange matter in neutron…
The transition to quark matter can take place in neutron stars. The structure of a hybrid star, containing a core made of quark matter is discussed. The maximum mass of the non-rotating hybrid star turns out to be 1.6 M_s. Possible…
If there exists the quark star of maximum mass $\sim 0.7\sol$ as suggested by recent Chandra observations, we show that the general relativistic collapse of a neutron star of mass greater than the maximum mass of the neutron star with…
In view of the observation by IceCube of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, it is important to quantify the uncertainty in the background of atmospheric neutrinos. There are two sources of uncertainty, the imperfect knowledge of the…
We investigate the hadron-quark phase transition in cold neutron stars in light of (i) the observed limits on the maximum-mass of heavy pulsars, (ii) constraints on the tidal properties inferred from the gravitational waves emitted in…
Dark matter particles may be captured by a star and then thermalized in the star's core. At the end of its life a massive star collapses suddenly and a compact object is formed. The dark matter particles redistribute accordingly. In the…