Related papers: Astrophysical Quark Matter
Forty years ago Witten suggested that dark matter could be composed of macroscopic clusters of strange quark matter. This idea was very popular for several years, but it dropped out of fashion once lattice QCD calculations indicated that…
Variability in gravitationally lensed quasars can be due to intrinsic fluctuations of the quasar or due to ``microlensing'' by compact objects along the line of sight. If disentangled from each other, microlens-induced variability can be…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved questions in astrophysics. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely associated with the most energetic processes…
General relativity describes the gravitational field geometrically and in a self-interacting way because it couples to all forms of energy, including its own. Both features make finding a quantum theory difficult, yet it is important in the…
We continue our work on a proposal for what dark matter could be, namely that the dark matter consists of essentially macroscopic objects built from ordinary matter. The only element of new physics is that there should exist several types…
Magnetic properties of quark matter and its relation to the microscopic origin of the magnetic field observed in compact stars are studied. Spontaneous spin polarization appears in high-density region due to the Fock exchange term, which…
To the astrophysicist faced with the puzzle of dark matter, this one appears under two different aspects: on the one hand in cosmology, i.e. at very large scales, where it seems to be made of a bath of particles; on the other hand at the…
In these notes I will briefly summarize our knowledge about the dark matter problem, and emphasize the corresponding dynamical aspects. This covers a wide area of research, so I have been selective, and have concentrated on the subject of…
If the dark matter of our galaxy is composed of nuggets of quarks or antiquarks in a colour superconducting phase there will be a small but non-zero flux of these objects through the Earth's atmosphere. A nugget of quark matter will deposit…
Neutron stars have long been regarded as extra-terrestrial laboratories from which we can learn about extreme energy density matter at low temperatures. In this article, I highlight some of the recent advances made in astrophysical…
Some magnetic properties of quark matter and a microscopic origin of the strong magnetic field in compact stars are discussed; ferromagnetic order is discussed with the Fermi liquid theory and possible appearance of spin density wave is…
I give a brief overview of cosmic ray physics, highlighting some key questions and how they will be addressed by new experiments.
Our Universe is full of regions where extreme physical conditions are realized. Among the most intriguing cases are the so-called magnetars: neutron stars with very dense cores and super-strong magnetic fields. In this paper I review the…
Astrophysical observations suggest that most of the matter in the cosmos consists of a new form that has not been observed on Earth. The nature and origin of this mysterious dark matter are among the most pressing questions in fundamental…
The hypothesis that cold dark matter consists of primordial superheavy particles, the decay of short lifetime component of which led to the observable mass of matter while long living component survived up to modern times manifesting its…
The cosmological and astrophysical implications of a shadow matter model which could also have interesting experimental consequences are examined. The model has identical microphysics for both the ordinary and shadow worlds but requires a…
Recent observations of hydrogen absorption that occurred when the first stars turned on may give insights into the nature of dark matter.
Dark matter is, arguably, the most widely discussed topic in contemporary particle physics. Written in the language of particle physics and quantum field theory, these notes focus on a set of standard calculations needed to understand…
Over the past few decades, a consensus picture has emerged in which roughly a quarter of the universe consists of dark matter. I begin with a review of the observational evidence for the existence of dark matter: rotation curves of…
One of the possible explanations for dark matter is that of compact dark objects of baryonic origin, such as black holes or even planets. Accumulating evidence, including the discovery of merging stellar mass black holes through…