Related papers: Strangelets, Nuclearites, Q-balls--A Brief Overvie…
Primordial Quark Nuggets,remnants of the quark-hadron phase transition, may be hiding most of the baryon number in superdense chunks have been discussed for years always from the theoretical point of view. While they seemed originally…
3-flavor quark matter (strange quark matter; SQM) can be stable or metastable for a wide range of strong interaction parameters. If so, SQM can play an important role in cosmology, neutron stars, cosmic ray physics, and relativistic…
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…
We report on the search for Strange Quark Matter (SQM) and charged Q-balls with the SLIM experiment at the Chacaltaya High Altitude Laboratory (5230 m a.s.l.) from 2001 to 2005. The SLIM experiment was a 427 m$^{2}$ array of Nuclear Track…
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…
Recently new data from the Cosmo-LEP project appeared, this time from DELPHI detector. They essentially confirm the findings reported some time ago by ALEPH, namely the appearence of bundles of muons with unexpectedly high multiplicities,…
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.…
Our knowledge on the possible existence in nature of stable exotic particles depends solely upon experimental observation. Guided by this general principle and motivated by theoretical hypotheses on the existence of stable particles of…
Strange quark matter is a postulated state which may be the true ground state of cold hadronic matter. Physicists have been searching for strange quark matter in the last several decades but found no definite evidence of its existence. In…
We assess the fragmentation of strange quark matter in astrophysical events, showing that the application of statistical multifragmentation models suggests that most of the fragments (strangelets) should belong to an unstable baryon number…
After a brief introduction to the physics of bulk strange quark matter (SQM) this review focuses on the properties of low baryon number strangelets presently searched for in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion experiments at CERN and Brookhaven.…
The conventionally separated treatments for strangelets and strange stars are now unified with a more comprehensive theoretical description for objects ranging from strangelets to strange stars. After constraining the model parameter…
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…
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…
We examine the properties of both forms of strange matter, small lumps of strange quark matter (strangelets) and of strange hadronic matter (Metastable Exotic Multihypernuclear Objects: MEMOs) and their relevance for present and future…
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…
Since Witten's seminal 1984 paper on the subject, searches for evidence of strange quark nuggets (SQNs) have proven unsuccessful. In the absence of experimental evidence ruling out SQNs, the validity of theories introducing mechanisms that…
We present the results of an experimental search for stable strange matter using the heavy ion activation technique. We studied samples of a meteorite, terrestrial nickel ore, and lunar soil. Our search improved the existing experimental…
Quark nuggets are theoretical objects composed of approximately equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. They are also called strangelets, nuclearites, AQNs, slets, Macros, and MQNs. Quark nuggets are a candidate for dark matter,…
A search for stable strange quark nuggets has been conducted in helium and argon using a high sensitivity mass spectrometer. The search was guided by a mass formula for strange quark nuggets which suggested that stable strange helium might…