Related papers: Can cosmic rays provide sign of strangelets?
There have been several reports of exotic nuclear fragments, with highly unusual charge to mass ratio, in cosmic ray experiments. Although there exist experimental uncertainties which make them, at best, only candidate "exotic" events, it…
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,…
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…
Assuming that cosmic rays entering the Earth's atmosphere contain a small admixture of nuggets of strange quark matter in form of strangelets one can explain a number of apparently "strange" effects observed in different cosmic rays…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
Strange quark matter (SQM) may be the true ground state of matter. According to this SQM hypothesis, the observed neutron stars actually should all be strange quark stars. But distinguishing between neutron stars and strange quark stars by…
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…
Madsen and Larsen proposed (astro-ph/0211597) that strangelets - stable lumps of strange quark matter (SQM) - are candidates for the highest energy cosmic rays. They point out that the expected properties of strangelets make them easier to…
The galactic propagation of cosmic ray strangelets is described and the resulting flux is calculated for a wide range of parameters as a prerequisite for strangelet searches in lunar soil and with an Earth orbiting magnetic spectrometer,…
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…
We propose model of propagation of lumps of Strange Quark Matter (strangelets) through the atmosphere, which accounts for their apparent strong penetrability and normal nuclear-type sizes at the same time. The mass spectrum of strangelets…
Motivated by some recent cosmic ray experiments we study the properties of strange quark matter near flavour equilibrium. Using Fermi-gas model we argue that, contrary to some claims, the geometrical radii of quark matter strangelets are…
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…
Strange quark matter (SQM) may be the true ground state of hadronic matter, indicating that the observed pulsars may actually be strange stars, but not neutron stars. According to this SQM hypothesis, the existence of a hydrostatically…
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.
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…