Related papers: Strange quark matter as dark matter: 40 years late…
The conjecture of Bodmer-Witten-Terazawa suggesting a form of quark matter (Strange Quark Matter) as the ground state of hadronic interactions has been studied in laboratory and astrophysical contexts by a large number of authors. If…
We discuss the first-order phase transition of QCD at high temperature in the universe and the possible formation of quark-matter lumps through cooling in regions of increased pressure. We show tha similarity of results using confinement…
It has been over 30 years since the first suggestion that the true ground state of cold hadronic matter might be not nuclear matter but rather strange quark matter (SQM). Ever since, searches for stable SQM have been proceeding in various…
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.…
If the surface tension of quark matter is low enough, quark matter is not self bound. At sufficiently low pressure and temperature, it will take the form of a crystal of positively charged strangelets in a neutralizing background of…
Strange quark matter (SQM) is considered a possible true ground state of QCD at high densities. This idea motivates research on exotic compact objects and certain cosmic-ray phenomena. For instance, the remnant HESS J1731-347 contains a…
Strange stars ought to exist in the universe according to the strange quark matter hypothesis, which states that matter made of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks could be the true ground state of baryonic matter rather…
Witten's conjecture about strange quark matter (`Strange Matter') being the ground state of QCD at finite baryon number is presented and stars made of strange matter (`Strange Stars') are compared to neutron stars. The only observable way…
Some recent developments concerning the role of strange quark matter for astrophysical systems and the QCD phase transition in the early universe are addressed. Causality constraints of the soft nuclear equation of state as extracted from…
Matter consisting of up, down and strange quarks, socalled Strange Quark Matter, has been hypothesized to be stable in bulk, and conceivably stable or metastable in finite systems---strangelets---as an alternative state to ordinary baryonic…
The properties of finite lumps of strange quark matter (strangelets) with emphasis on the two scenarios of producing strange matter in relativistic heavy ion collisions are summarized. As an outlook, the possibility of short-lived strange…
Creation of strange quark stars through strong interaction deconfinement is studied based on modern estimates of hyperon formation in neutron stars. The hyperon abundance is shown to be large enough so that if strange quark matter (SQM) is…
If strange quark matter is stable in small lumps, we expect to find such lumps, called ``strangelets'', on Earth due to a steady flux in cosmic rays. Following recent astrophysical models, we predict the strangelet flux at the top of the…
"Dark quark nuggets", a lump of dark quark matter, can be produced in the early universe for a wide range of confining gauge theories and serve as a macroscopic dark matter candidate. The two necessary conditions, a nonzero dark baryon…
The possible existence of compact stars made of absolutely stable strange quark matter--referred to as strange stars--was pointed out by E. Witten almost a quarter of a century ago. One of the most amazing features of such objects concerns…
According to the hypothesis that strange quark matter may be the true ground state of matter at extremely high densities, strange quark stars should be stable and could exist in the Universe. It is possible that pulsars may actually be…
The QCD phase transition has important consequences in the context of both the early universe as well as compact stars. Such transitions are being studied for high temperature and small chemical potential scenario in the laboratory. There…
In this paper we consider the possibility that strange quark matter may be manifested in the form of strangelet crystal planets. These planet-like objects are made up of nuggets of strange quark matter (SQM), organized in a crystalline…
A description of strange quark matter at finite temperature is given, with emphasis on the inclusion of finite size effects. For massless quarks all thermodynamic quantities can be evaluated analytically, while the case of massive quarks…
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…