Strangelets and nuclearitesan overview

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Strangelets and nuclearitesan overview

• Jes Madsen
• University of Aarhus, Denmark

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Topics

• What are strangelets and nuclearites?
• Ways to detect a cosmic ray strangelet flux
• A strangelet search with AMS-02 on the
  International Space Station
• A lunar soil strangelet search
• Strangelets beyond the GZK-cutoff ?

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Strangelets (Small Lumps of Strange Quark Matter)

• Roughly equal numbers of u,d,s quarks in a single
  bag of cold hadronic matter.

That u,d, quark matter is not absolutely stable
can be inferred by stability of normal nuclei-but
this is not true for u,d,s quark matter.
Strangelet A12 (36 quarks) Z/A 0.083
Nucleus (12C) Z6, A12 Z/A 0.5
Courtesy Evan Finch (Yale)
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E/A for bulk strange quark matter
E/A (MeV)
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Phase diagram for QCD
Temperature
Density
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Quark nuggets as dark matter?

Cosmological nuclearites Alt1049
(CAUSALITY) Agt1040 (EVAPORATION) Agt1023O3
(NUCLEOSYNTH.)
Q-BALLS are analogous
log(Baryon number)
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Q-balls behave like quark nuggets
Madsen, Phys.Rev.Lett. 61(1988)2909 (quark
nuggets) Phys.Lett. B246(1990)135
(baryonic Q-balls) Phys.Lett.
B435(1998)125 (supersymmetric Q-balls)
Quark nugget pollution in Galaxy gt ALL NEUTRON
STARS ARE STRANGE STARS Q-ball pollution in
Galaxy gt ALL NEUTRON STARS ARE
Q-STARS OR FLUXES ARE NEGLIGIBLE
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Ordinary strangelets

• Witten Farhi Jaffe
• Shell-model vs. liquid drop model
• Bulk EA
• Surface tension EA2/3
• Curvature EA1/3

B(145 MeV)4
mS50, 100, 300 MeV
Stable
Madsen, PRD 50 (1994) 3328
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B (145MeV)4 vs. (165MeV)4
Unstable
Stable
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Color-Flavor Locking
Stable
STRANGELETS
BULK
Madsen, PRL 87 (2001) 172003
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Strangelets have low Z/A
Heiselberg, PRD 48 (1993) 1418 Ordinary
strangelets
Madsen, PRL 87 (2001) 172003 CFL
0.3A2/3
8A1/3
Nuclei 0.5A
0.1A
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Strangelets from strange star binary collisions

• 1 binary neutron star collision per 10,000
  years in our Galaxy
• Release of 10-6 solar masses per collision
• Basic assumptions
• SQM absolutely stable!
• All neutron stars are strange stars!
• All mass released as strangelets with mass A

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Strangelet propagation

• Acceleration in supernova shocks etc
• Source-flux powerlaw in rigidity
• Diffusion in galactic magnetic field
• Energy loss from ionization of interstellar
  medium and pion production
• Spallation from collision with nuclei
• Escape from galaxy
• Reacceleration from passing shocks

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Cosmic strangelet fluxZ8, A138 CFL
Flux (per year GV sqm sterad)
Source
Interstellar
Solar System
Madsen (2005) Phys.Rev. D 71, 014026
Rigidity (GV)
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Total CFL-strangelet flux
Total flux (per year sqm sterad)
No geomagnetic cutoff
Interstellar
Solar System
Madsen (2005) Phys.Rev. D 71, 014026
Z
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Total CFL-strangelet flux
Total flux (per year sqm sterad)
No geomagnetic cutoff
Interstellar
Solar System
Madsen (2005) Phys.Rev. D 71, 014026
A
Mass number
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Detecting strangelets at 1-1000 GV

• Find low Z/A cosmic rays with high precision
  equipment in space
• gt
• AMS-02

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AMS-02 Collaboration
FINLAND
RUSSIA
HELSINKI UNIV. UNIV. OF TURKU
I.K.I. ITEP KURCHATOV INST. MOSCOW STATE UNIV.
DENMARK
UNIV. OF AARHUS
NETHERLANDS
GERMANY
ESA-ESTEC NIKHEF NLR
RWTH-I RWTH-III MAX-PLANK INST. UNIV. OF KARLSRUHE
KOREA
USA
EWHA KYUNGPOOK NAT.UNIV.
AM FLORIDA UNIV. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV. MIT -
CAMBRIDGE NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER NASA
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER UNIV. OF MARYLAND-DEPRT OF
PHYSICS UNIV. OF MARYLAND-E.W.S. S.CENTER YALE
UNIV. - NEW HAVEN
FRANCE
ROMANIA
CHINA
BISEE (Beijing) IEE (Beijing) IHEP (Beijing) SJTU
(Shanghai) SEU (Nanjing) SYSU (Guangzhou) SDU
(Jinan)
GAM MONTPELLIER LAPP ANNECY LPSC GRENOBLE
ISS UNIV. OF BUCHAREST
SWITZERLAND
ETH-ZURICH UNIV. OF GENEVA
TAIWAN
SPAIN
CIEMAT - MADRID I.A.C. CANARIAS.
ITALY
ACAD. SINICA (Taiwan) CSIST (Taiwan) NCU (Chung
Li) NCKU (Tainan) NCTU (Hsinchu) NSPO (Hsinchu)
ASI CARSO TRIESTE IROE FLORENCE INFN UNIV. OF
BOLOGNA INFN UNIV. OF MILANO INFN UNIV. OF
PERUGIA INFN UNIV. OF PISA INFN UNIV. OF
ROMA INFN UNIV. OF SIENA
MEXICO
UNAM
PORTUGAL
LAB. OF INSTRUM. LISBON
16 Countries, 56 Institutes, 500 Physicists
95 of AMS is constructed in Europe and Asia
Y96673-05_1Commitment
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Atlantis launch Sep. 9, 2006
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ISS from STS-115 Sep. 17, 2006
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Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02
International Space Station 2008 - 2011 (or
longer)

• PURPOSE
• Cosmic rays
• Antimatter (anti-He)
• Dark matter
• Strangelets
• Superconducting magnet technology

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The AMS superconducting magnet coils are fully
assembled

• Volume 35 cu. ft., Field 8,600 Gauss, Weight 2
  tons

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Courtesy Choutko (MIT)
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Detecting strangelets at 100 MeV

• Find low Z/A nuclei in lunar dust with high
  precision accelerator mass spectrometer
• gt
• Lunar Soil Strangelet Search

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The Moon as a strangelet detector
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NASA gave us 15 grams of lunar soil from Apollo 11
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Wright Nuclear Structure Lab Yale LSSS-collaborat
ion Sandweiss, Majka, Finch, Ashenfelter, Chikani
an, Han, Heinz, Parker (Yale) Fisher, Monreal
(MIT) Madsen (Århus)
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Courtesy Evan Finch (Yale)
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Courtesy Evan Finch (Yale)
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Lunar soil flux limits
Predicted flux (Madsen 05)
Flux (m2 sr yr) -1
Current Preliminary Limit
AMS-01 interesting event
Goal for Z 8 (also sensitive to nearby charges)
1 event sensitivity in AMS-02
A
Baryon number
Evan Finch (Yale)
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Cronin, Gaisser Swordy (1997)
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Strangelets could also explain Ultra-High Energy
Cosmic RaysMadsen Larsen, PRL 90 (2003) 121102

• Avoids the acceleration problem of ordinary
  UHECR candidates (HIGH Z)
• Avoids the GZK cut-off from interaction with 2.7K
  cosmic microwave background (HIGH A)

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Eliminating the GZK-cutoff

• Photo-pion production cut-off at
• b) Photo-disintegration at
• Photo-pair-production above

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Summary

• Strangelets have low Z/A
• CFL and non-CFL strangelets differ wrt. Z
• Experimental verification/falsification of
• Strangelet existence
• Realistic from AMS-02 2008-?
• Possible from lunar soil search 2006-7
• (A,Z)-relation (CFL or ordinary)
• Optimistic, but not impossible from AMS-02 or
  lunar soil search
• Possible explanation of UHECRs
• Can play similar games for Q-balls