Related papers: Bulk Strong Matter: the Trinity
(Abridged) Present cosmological constraints and the absence of a direct detection and identification of any dark matter particle candidate leave room to the possibility that the dark sector of the Universe be actually more complex than it…
A neutron star is pictured as a gigantic nucleus overwhelmed by the number of neutrons, unlike real atomic nuclei, that have a similar number of neutrons and protons. Is this true? What if we could find, or create nuclei without protons?…
The Hot Big Bang is often considered as the origin of all matter and radiation in the Universe. Primordial nucleosynthesis (BBN) provides strong evidence that the early Universe contained a hot plasma of photons and baryons with a…
The properties of matter are significantly modified by strong magnetic fields, $B>>2.35\times 10^9$ Gauss ($1 G =10^{-4} Tesla$), as are typically found on the surfaces of neutron stars. In such strong magnetic fields, the Coulomb force on…
In this lecture, we give a first introduction to neutron stars, based on fundamental physical principles. After outlining their amazing macroscopic properties, as obtained from observations, we infer the extreme conditions of matter in…
Macroscopic dark matter with dominating strong interactions, supposed to be composites, represents an alternative to the most popular WIMP particles. Predicted in various models as strangelets, nuclearites, nuggets, having different…
A new family of nonrelativistic, Newtonian, non-quantum equilibrium configurations describing galactic halos is introduced, by considering strange quark matter conglomerates with masses larger than about 8 GeV as new possible components of…
The quark matter may have great implications in astrophysical studies, which could appear in the early Universe, in compact stars, and/or as cosmic rays. After a general review of astrophysical quark matter, the density-dominated quark…
There is increasing evidence that the universe is dominated by dark energy of the type given by an invariant cosmological constant. Latest data also indicates that fundamental interaction couplings and particle masses have remained…
The axion has emerged in recent years as a leading particle candidate to provide the mysterious dark matter in the cosmos, as we review here for a general scientific audience. We describe first the historical roots of the axion in the…
Since ordinary matter constitutes about 4% of the closure density of the Universe while dark matter constitutes about six times as much, it is urged that searches for dark matter consider that it may exist in several forms. Implications for…
One of the major challenges of modern physics is to decipher the nature of dark matter. Astrophysical observations provide ample evidence for the existence of an invisible and dominant mass component in the observable universe, from the…
The particle that makes up the dark matter of the universe could be an axion or axion-like particle. A collection of axions can condense into a bound Bose-Einstein condensate called an axion star. It is possible that a significant fraction…
The existence of stars with a large mass of 2 solar masses means that the equation of state is stiff enough to provide high enough pressure at large central densities. Previous work shows that such a stiff equation of state is possible if…
Cosmology and particle physics are deeply interrelated. Among the common problems are dark energy, dark matter and baryon asymmetry of the Universe. We discuss these problems in general terms, and concentrate on several particular…
There are multiple examples of gravitational losses in neutron stars and black holes. Protons and neutrons have been found to have enormous repulsive pressures that highly squeezed collapsing matter cannot overcome. The case against…
The nature of dark matter (DM), which is supposed to constitute about one-fourth of the universe, is still a mystery. There is evidence that much of the DM may be made up of as yet undiscovered particles with several experiments all over…
In the brane-world scenario, our universe is understood as a three dimensional hypersurface embedded in a higher dimensional space-time. The fluctuations of the brane along the extra dimensions are seen from the four-dimensional point of…
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 quantum model of the homogeneous, isotropic, and spatially closed universe predicts an existence of two types of collective quantum states in the universe. The states of one type characterize a gravitational field, the others describe a…