Related papers: Can cosmic strangelets reach the earth?
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…
We investigate, at both zero and finite temperature, the properties of strangelets versus the electric charge Z and strangeness S. The strangelet radius is not a monotonic function of either charge or strangeness, and a minimum is reached…
The main properties of magnetized strangelets, namely, their energy per baryon, radius and electric charge, are studied. Temperature effects are also taken into account in order to study their stability compared to the 56Fe isotope and…
The properties of strangelets at finite temperature are studied within the framework of an equivparticle model, where a new quark mass scaling and self-consistent thermodynamic treatment are adopted. The effects of finite volume and Coulomb…
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…
Strangelets (stable lumps of quark matter) can have masses and charges much higher than those of nuclei, but have very low charge-to-mass ratios. This is confirmed in a relativistic Thomas-Fermi model. The high charge allows astrophysical…
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 properties of strangelets are reviewed and two experiments searching for them in cosmic rays are described. The prospects for strangelets as ultra-high energy cosmic rays beyond the classical GZK-cutoff are discussed.
We speculate on some novel consequences possibly associated with a change of elementary particle constants with time. These concern the question as to whether particles reaching the earth from distant parts of the universe reflect their…
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…
Astrophysical bounds on the properties and abundances of primordial quark nuggets and cosmic ray strangelets are reviewed. New experiments to search for cosmic ray strangelets in lunar soil and from the International Space Station are…
The stability of strange matter depends on the implicit assumption that baryon number is conserved. We examine the relevant effective operators which allow strangelets to decay by violating the conservation of baryon number. From the…
Earth is constantly struck by radiation coming from the interstellar medium. The very low energy end of the spectrum is shielded by the geomagnetic field but charged particles with energies higher than the geomagnetic cutoff will penetrate…
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…
It is argued that strangelets are viable candidates for ultrahigh energy cosmic rays that circumvent the acceleration and energy-loss problems facing protons and nuclei, in spite of concerns raised in a comment by Balberg.
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…
Using the quark mass density- and temperature dependent model, we have studied the thermodynamical properties and the stability of strangelet at finite temperature. The temperature, charge and strangeness dependences on the stability of…
A variety of terrestrial planets with different physical parameters and exotic atmospheres might plausibly exist outside our Solar System, waiting to be detected by the next generation of space-exploration missions. Some of these planets…
It is shown that nuggets of strange quark matter may be extracted from the surface of pulsars and accelerated by strong electric fields to high energies if pulsars are strange stars with the crusts, comprised of nuggets embedded in a…
The conjecture that ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are actually strangelets is discussed. Besides the reason that strangelets can do as cosmic rays beyond the GZK-cutoff, another argument to support the conjecture is addressed in…